


my heart of gold

by BeggarWhoRides



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Abusive Relationships, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Historical, Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, Gen, Grey morals everywhere, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Pregnancy, Unhealthy Relationships, grey morals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-10 18:46:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11132613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeggarWhoRides/pseuds/BeggarWhoRides
Summary: It is not an exaggeration to say that Delphine Cormier is the most infamous European queen, if not the most infamous queen in history. Even now, nearly 500 years after her reign, she continues to capture the minds and curiosity of hundreds. Was she a woman caught up in a political game? Was she a politician herself who overplayed her hand?Or was she exactly what she was found her guilty of?(history loves its star-crossed lovers)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Slightly spoilery) Warnings this chapter for: Depictions of an unhealthy relationship, implications of sex with dubious/unclear consent, some internalized homophobia, some religious themes, pregnancy.
> 
> Historical note: Though this story is loosely inspired by the events at Henry VIII's court, there are deliberately no actual historical figures mentioned in the fic or any characters that are direct allegories to any historical figures. I am 1000% certain there are inaccuracies in the fic, so if you're very knowledgeable about the Tudor period or if anachronisms really bother you, you might want to read something else. Think of it like _Hamilton_ \--history inspired and history loving, but stuff's gonna get thrown out for the sake of the story.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Delphine Cormier is the most infamous European queen, if not the most infamous queen in history. Even now, nearly 500 years after her reign, she continues to capture the minds and curiosity of hundreds. Was she a woman caught up in a political game? Was she a politician herself who overplayed her hand?

Or was she exactly what that court, centuries ago, found her guilty of?

It is impossible to penetrate that aura of mystery that Delphine Cormier carried with her, even while she was alive. But we can try.

Here are the facts: She was born in Lille, France, in the early 1500s (discrepancies in the record make it hard to pin down her exact age, but most agree it was sometime before 1510). The daughter of low-ranking nobility, she was well-educated in many languages, history, arts, music, and politics. She was said to be (and the famous Sawicki portrait, painted early in her short tenure, confirms she was) quite beautiful, with pale skin, long hair that was wavy and blonde, and eyes described as “like hazelnuts in color, and candle flames in warmth and light” (poem by unidentified author, approximately 1530). Beautiful, alluring, and brilliant, it is obvious why she caught the King’s eye when he stopped at her family’s estate following a diplomatic visit to France.

What happened after is the fascinating part.

\--Excerpt from _Queen Delphine: the Whispers, the Legends, the Woman_ by police detective and amateur historian Arthur Bell

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delphine stands in front of the mirror, back straight, hands folded in front of her the way mother had always scolded her to do, and meets her own reflection’s gaze.

In less than an hour, she will be queen.

The castle flurries with activity, more servants than she’s ever seen in her life scurrying to and fro with lowered heads and respectful murmurs when she was looking, stares and whispers when they thought she was not. There had been ushering back and forth, bathing and dressing, the lacing of corsets and draping of silks and what had felt like hours of drying and brushing her waist-length golden curls, maids and ladies fluttering around her like colorful birds, chirping easily back and forth in a language so different than her native tongue. 

She may not have been able to understand all of the words, but she did understand people. She was a curiosity, an exotic trinket, an interloper from another country suddenly climbing the ranks, suddenly high above her station.

And before nightfall, she will be seated at the right hand of their ruler.

She stares at herself in her creamy silk and tulle, at the skirts and corset glittering with jewels that she will never wear beyond this once, at the picture of grandeur and beauty she creates, and waits to feel. Maybe a thrill of girlish joy at the thought of a wedding that had once been beyond her family’s wildest dreams, a twinge of sinful pride at the fact that she is, undeniably, a sight to behold, anything other than the strange combination of homesickness and satisfaction at completing a task that has been filling her since the grand arrival at the castle.

Nothing comes. 

Though perhaps this is not entirely due to her own melancholy, but the fact that the last remaining servant in the room has kept her waiting for ten minutes. She is bent over Delphine’s jewelry box, as she had been for at least fifteen minutes, a waterfall of dark curly hair cascading down her back.

“Is it common for servants to keep their ladies waiting in this country?” she asks at last, breaking her own silence for perhaps the first time since arriving.

“My apologies, my lady.” The servant straightens up from where she has been looking through one of Delphine’s trunks for a pair of pearls, an apologetic smile on her face. Delphine supposes she must have been there from the start, lost in the bustle of other servants that had filled the room until just moments ago. “It shouldn’t take much longer.”

“I should hope not.” The words are less scolding than Delphine had wanted them to be in the face of the servant’s bright smile. “Or I shall be late to my own wedding.”

“I was late to my own christening, my lady. A bad habit of mine that I shall try not to inflict upon you.” The servant ducks her head in a respectful bow, though the submissiveness of the gesture is somewhat diminished by the smirk she still wears. Delphine can hear her mother’s scolding, ordering her to send the girl away at once. _A gentle heart is a weak heart, Delphine, and kindness will earn you nothing but betrayal._

But her mother is dead and Delphine is to be queen, and she smiles.

“And what name did they christen such a troublesome babe with?” She sees the servant’s grin grow, and feels her own mirror it.

“Cosima, my lady. Cosima Niehaus.”

Delphine purses her lips a bit, rolling the strange name on her tongue. “I have never heard of someone named Cosima before.”

“You wouldn’t have, my lady. It was a name my father invented, much to my mother’s chagrin.” The servant--Cosima--ducks her head again and returns to searching through Delphine’s jewelry box for the pearl earrings. This time, Delphine notices the way she bends until her nose is nearly brushing the jewels, squinting as she works her way through them.

“Mistress Niehaus, are your eyes bad?”

“Yes, my lady,” Cosima replies. Delphine expects some sort of embarrassment over it, or an apology, but instead Cosima straightens up, pearl earrings in hand. She meets Delphine’s gaze directly, and it has been so long since anyone has looked at her like that--like she is being seen--that Delphine falters for an instant. “The Lord felt that giving me clear eyes in addition to all my other virtues would unfairly advantage me against all others. This way, some may stand a chance.”

The laugh that bubbles out of Delphine at that is a surprise to both of them, and she finds herself clamping a hand over her mouth to try and hide the unladylike sound. Cosima’s grin only grows.

“You are... _very_ impudent,” she says once she can manage it without a giggle. The smile on her face takes away any harsh tone the words might have had.

“So I have been told, my lady. I have also found your earrings at last. If I may?” 

Delphine nods, and Cosima crosses the room, going from a respectful distance away to close enough that Delphine can see nothing but her in the space of a few breaths. Delphine takes another breath for good measure, thinking of the governesses and maids who raised her, with distant eyes and cold hands.

Cosima’s hands are warm. Delphine watches out of the corner of her eye as Cosima rubs the metal of the jewelry between the pads of her fingers before she feels it push, gentle as a breeze, into the piercing.

Cosima runs her fingers once over the lobe of Delphine’s ear before backing away, her eyes flickering back down respectfully when she notices Delphine watching.

Delphine can’t quite look away.

“Your other ear, my lady,” Cosima murmurs and Delphine nods again. She steps forward and Delphine tilts her head a bit--Cosima, she realizes, is a few inches shorter--and allows Cosima to repeat the process. She is still marvelling a bit at the gentle touch when Cosima steps away.

“Finished, my lady. And with plenty of time for you to arrive at the ceremony as well.” Cosima ducks her head again, though the gesture is more playful than deferential. “Though I daresay the would wait for you. They may need a bride for a wedding, after all.” 

“I would hope, otherwise this country is far stranger than I initially presumed.” Cosima’s face returns to a grin, and again, Delphine feels her lips matching it. “You are dismissed.”

Cosima is barely three steps down the hall when Delphine finds herself calling out. “Mistress Niehaus?”

“My lady?”

“Are…” Delphine feels a small curling of shock in her belly at the fact that she is even asking this, but it is far overwhelmed by her need to know. “Are you employed at the castle, or merely hired for the wedding?”

Something appears in Cosima’s eyes at that. “I have the honor of serving at the castle, my lady, and have for two years now.”

“So I shall see you again?”

“If I am lucky, my lady.” 

“Good.” Delphine tries for a touch of imperiousness at the word, and isn’t sure she reaches it. “That--that is all.” 

It isn’t until Cosima has disappeared down the hall that Delphine realizes the girlish thrill she’d been seeking earlier had appeared, warming her entire body with its glow.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The King has cold lips.

It isn't what she she should be noticing, she knows as soon as she has the thought, but it lingers as he reaches up, fingers curling against her cheek.

She smiles, blushes, looks down and glances back up through her lashes. The king smiles, small and quiet, his hand never leaving her face, his eyes never leaving her.

As if it was their first kiss. As if they were innocent royals in love.

He links his arm through hers, his cool fingers wrapping around hers, and Delphine glances demurely around at the crowds, pressing into the King’s side as if embarrassed, the King ducking his head to murmur into her hair as if comforting her. 

He sweeps her down the last few feet of the aisle, through the grand oak doors and into the dining hall. It sprawls before her, rows of long tables sagging underneath the weight of meats and fruits that Delphine can't recognize, nobles in clothes rich and vibrant and beautiful and only half as fine as her own. They stand as one, applauding loud enough to make the stone walls ring.

“They are applauding for us, my love.”

Delphine, smiling small and pretty, tightens her grip on the King’s hand, half-rising her hand in a wave and listening to the cheers redouble. 

Everything that she had been fighting for, now in her hands.

“My lord,” she ducks her head and murmurs, politely smiling and nodding at the lords and ladies seated around them.

“My queen,” the King murmurs in reply, half a smile pulling at his lips. “My most noble queen.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delphine _aches._

The servants and maids are back, their presence a relief this time as, far too slowly for her liking, they lifted off her corset and skirts, replacing them with a rich red silken robe.

She let the chatter of the women wash over her, too tired by the hours of dancing and making polite conversation with suspicious nobles to bother translating the idle talk of the women around her. As a result, she realizes both that it has gone silent and that she has missed something in the same moment. 

“I'm sorry?” she asks, an apologetic smile on her face as she glances at the faces surrounding her. Glancing at each other, an unspoken conversation passes through the servants in the space of a moment before one steps forward. 

“My lady,” she says, her words slow and loud. “Many prefer a sister or close friend to help them prepare for the, ah, wedding night. Is there anyone from your country who you would..?”

“No,” Delphine replies, too quickly and she knows it. _“Non,_ I brought no one with me. I'm sure you will do a fine job.” The servants glance around at each other as Delphine tries to meet all their gazes at once, to convey sincerity. “Though perhaps not all of you at once. Maybe just one of you to help me with the final details?”

_Yes, my lady,_ and _of course, my lady_ slips from the lips of the maids, and moments later the room is blissfully quiet, disturbed only by the quiet shuffling of one set of skirts against the floor.

There is no mistaking that long, dark hair.

“Mistress Niehaus, wasn't it?” she asks, despite knowing well who it was. Cosima looks up, and the sparkle in her eyes makes it clear that she knows it too.

“Cosima is fine, my lady,” she smiles, dipping her head in a quick half-curtsy before moving forward. “If I may, my lady?”

“Of course.” Delphine reaches up to where her hair and all its elaborate pins are resting heavy on the back of her neck. “It would be--a rest?”

“You may mean relief, my lady,” Cosima murmurs as her hands overlap Delphine, gently helping to pull the curls loose. Delphine finds herself stiffening, a part of her flushing at the mistake, a part of her halfway to snapping. But Cosima said it gently, not scolding or cruel, and after a moment Delphine lets her hackles down, helping Cosima pull a few more curls free.

“Yes,” she says, needing the weight of the silence to be filled with something. “Relief. Thank you.” 

Her hair finally, finally falls free and she sighs happily, Cosima chuckling a little.

“Maybe relief isn't a strong enough word, my lady.” 

“You are teasing now,” Delphine replies, massaging her aching scalp. It hadn't truly hurt until the pain had been relieved. “I do not care.”

Cosima laughs, free and easy. “Fair enough, my lady.”

Delphine sits at the vanity, stretching out the places where her neck is tense, and it only takes a moment for Cosima to separate Delphine’s long curls into three sections and begin braiding. 

She is gentle as she works, surprisingly so. Delphine finds herself wondering softly at it, the same way she had before when Cosima had helped her dress. She doesn't quite belong here, she thinks, relaxing despite herself into Cosima’s ministrations. Cosima doesn't belong in this world of chess masters and serpents below flowers.

She doesn't belong in Delphine’s world.

The King does not enjoy waiting, and so Delphine pulls herself back, reaching for a dish of perfumed water to dab at her throat and wrists. It smells like nothing she had in the small estate where she'd spent so much of her life, even less than the sunny fields and warm place she distantly remembers, all mixed up with the feeling of _Grand-mére’s_ gentle hands on her head and _Maman’s_ fingers pinching as she pulls Delphine away.

The scent is another layer between Delphine and where she came from; another bit of shelter. The fact that the King favors the smell adds to its appeal. She spreads her legs and and runs the perfume along her inner thighs before readjusting her skirts and setting the cloth aside.

Cosima doesn't quite meet her eyes as she finishes the braid and drapes a robe over Delphine’s shoulders. Delphine doesn't quite meet her eyes either.

“Do you know the way to the King’s chambers, my lady?”

“I can find my way,” Delphine answers her quickly. She stands--shoulders down, back straight, head high to show good breeding, eyes angled to appear demure, not coquettish, everything on display so as to appear not to be on display at all. Cosima has a look that Cosima can't quite place when Delphine turns around to face her.

“Thank you,” she says before she stops herself, before she hears her mother’s voice scolding her for speaking to a servant as if they were equal. “Cosima.”

“Of course, my lady,” Cosima says, soft and with a little smile. “Anytime.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delphine slips back into her own room like a thief, her hair hanging loose around her head, clutching her robe shut in the front. The King was snoring off in his chambers, sated and peaceful, and Delphine swallows, catches her fingers in the mass of tangles around her head, and slips into the too-large, too-plush bed.

Cosima is gone, and the servant on duty hadn't even stirred when Delphine slipped by, and she is absurdly grateful for that as she finally settles back into the unfamiliar pillows.

_I've won,_ she reminds herself, again and again. _I am queen, I am free of home, I've won, I've won, I've won._

Sleep takes hours to come.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The days slide into each other, in flurries of skirts and conversation and nights split between her bed and the King’s, with bright spots like stars scattered throughout in the form of those stolen moments with Cosima and the small facts she was able to glean from them.

Cosima has a brother and two sisters--Felix, Helena, and Sarah--and says the cook is essentially another mother to her, a woman called Sadler who Delphine has never met but makes delicious food. 

Cosima has a wonderful eye for colors and textures that shouldn't work together but do, and though she hasn't yet convinced Delphine to vary much of her own wardrobe, Cosima herself manages to be striking. Even in the plainest robes, among the crowds of the great hall, Delphine’s eyes always manage to find Cosima--and Cosima, no matter how far back in the hall she's standing, always manages a bright smile and the smallest of waves. 

Cosima smells fresh and floral when she steps close to Delphine to help her dress; apples and sweet fertile earth and sunlight. Cosima’s hands are gentle when they linger on Delphine’s, and move like dancers when she’s speaking in a way that Delphine can't help but marvel at. Cosima is enchanting, in every aspect of her.

And Delphine, after so long clinging to logic and plans and ambition, is _feeling._

There had been a moment once, when Cosima was helping Delphine to undress, when she’d smoothed her hands down Delphine’s shoulders and Delphine hadn’t thought but reached up, her hand covering Cosima’s warm one. It was a movement not of choice, but of instinct to entwine their fingers--a natural movement, like the way a river knows to join with the ocean. Their fingers fit perfectly.

It was a perfect moment, a portrait of everything beautiful. Cosima’s hair, free and dark down her shoulders, over her dark blue dress with dark brown underskirts barely visible. Her skin warm to the touch, warm to the eye as well--the gentle tan of someone who’d run free as a child, who loved the outdoors. Delphine sat before her vanity, an opposite in every way that seemed to matter--golden curls in delicate, careful ringlets, pooling below her waist, in nothing but that last layer of her underthings, white linen slid halfway down her shoulders, the fabric only a few shades off the milky paleness of her own skin. The candles threw a feeling of unreality of the scene--all warm glow against the darkness threatening in the windows, the light flickering and dancing both around them and in the window--a feeling like there was nothing but them and this moment. Delphine glanced demurely into the mirror, and at Cosima’s face through that layer of separation. She could see Cosima had no such qualms, not even looking through her eyelashes but instead directly, wonderingly, at Delphine.

Their hands were still touching, their fingers still linked, and neither of them were breathing.

A portrait of everything that could never be.

“My lady--” Cosima had whispered, hoarse, and Delphine had drawn a sharp breath and pulled away.

“That will be all.”

“My lady, I--”

“That will be all, Mistress Niehaus.” Delphine repeated, pulling up the shoulders of her shift. “Please.”

“Of course,” Cosima whispered, her hands drawing away like they’d been burned, still and clutching at each other in a way that was so unlike Cosima, and Delphine reached back out, her hand on Cosima’s wrist, and she could see Cosima’s eyes flicker up, wide and wondering. Delphine looked steadfastly in the mirror, the reflection easier to face than everything else pushing down on the two of them.

“Come…” Delphine swallowed, Cosima’s pulse hammering against her fingers. “I expect to see you again in the morning, Mistress Niehaus.” It tried to be an order, but turned up into a question at the end. “You are the best at doing up the lacing, after all.”

“Of course, my lady.” Delphine didn’t look up until the chamber door closed, soft and firm.

And now the moment runs through Delphine’s mind, even days later, as Cosima helps her into a gown, the fabric rich and heavy. Cosima does not linger, professional and proper, but Delphine knows it is not only her breath that stutters as Cosima’s hands brush against the bare skin at the base of Delphine’s neck.

One of the maids finishes her duties and slips away, and Cosima steps back, about to follow, and Delphine calls her back.

“My lady?”

“I...my hair,” Delphine says, touching the French hood concealing most of her hair. “The pinnings feel insecure, could you--”

“My lady, if I could be so bold?” Delphine hesitates, and Cosima steps forward, too close to be proper, and Delphine should be backing away, scolding Cosima, but instead she blinks into the deep warm brown of Cosima’s eyes, and she is lost. “We both know what this is truly about. So perhaps, instead of this…”

And then she is kissing Cosima Niehaus.

There are a thousand, thousand, thousand things wrong with this moment. But she will only realize that later.

In it, for the first time, she feels right.

Cosima’s lips are warm, as full of life as the rest of her, petal-soft and as gentle as her hands reaching up to rest on Delphine’s shoulders, to pull her closer--and Delphine lets herself, drawn along in the sudden feeling like stepping off a ship and onto solid land, the want that suddenly surges up in her. 

Cosima is kind and Cosima is warm and Cosima tastes like life and fruit and that first breath of air and Delphine wants, and Cosima’s lips part and gasps the smallest, most precious sound, and Delphine--

Delphine--

Delphine pulls away.

“My lady--” and Delphine is cold, suddenly, several steps from Cosima, and Cosima looks horrified. “My lady Queen, I--” 

“Go.” It comes out almost guttural. Cosima’s face crumples. Delphine turns away. “That is an order.” 

She can hear Cosima’s breath shaking. She shuts her eyes.

“Please--” 

_“Go.”_

The chamber door slams. Delphine rearranges her sleeves, her necklaces so they fall perfectly arranged over her skin. So it is as if nothing had happened at all.

Somehow, the feeling of Cosima’s lips linger. With trembling fingers, Delphine gently traces the sensation.

She should be repulsed. She should be horrified. She should be moving to have Mistress Niehaus removed from her post immediately, to have her arrested, to be running to the chapel to make confession and beg forgiveness.

Instead, she weeps.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The cruelest part of it all is the next day, neither of them can act as if anything had happened.

Cosima moves along with the others as they undress her, dress her, pin up her hair and arrange her jewels. They chatter amongst themselves, even as Cosima stays uncharacteristically silent--not speaking except for those words she’d apparently been ordered to say.

“His Majesty wished to express his disappointment at not seeing you last night, and requests your presence tonight.” 

“He could not tell me this himself, when I see him in court today?”

“His Majesty will be hunting with several of his Lords today, and expects he will not return until after nightfall. He requests that you be ready for him when he returns.”

“I understand.” She turns--too quickly, before Cosima looks away--or perhaps Cosima was never intending to look away at all, her gaze meeting Delphine’s and with the hurt almost totally hidden away. It would be the easiest thing in the world to break.

“Tell the King I will see him tonight.” 

Cosima inhales--a tiny, agonized sound--and she curtsies and is gone. 

“My lady, would you prefer the pearls or the rubies?”

“The pearls,” Delphine says, and she even smiles.

It is all easy enough to ignore after that, with only Delphine’s physical presence strictly required. The mistresses were filing out before long--one of them giving her a bit of a concerned look that Delphine did her best to brush off. None of the others seemed to have noticed anything, either way.

Delphine is well-used to being alone. It meant peace. It meant safety.

But somehow the gaping emptiness of the room manages to feel suffocating.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The emptiness of her day shatters abruptly when she slips into the library and is met with the sound of sobbing.

“Ah... _allô?”_ She closes the door slowly behind her--there are few people permitted to be in the area, and fewer still that actually choose to spend time in the library, and Delphine was used to having it for herself. The crying stops for a moment, then redoubles, Delphine wondering if it was bad form for a queen to hide herself away to avoid someone in distress.

“Hello?” The faint voice snuffs out any hope Delphine had of running, so she moves forward instead, toward the back corner of the room. “Who’s there?”

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Delphine starts, cautious and uncertain and everything she isn’t meant to be anymore. There’s a sudden round of sniffling and rustling of skirts, and she makes it around the corner just as one of her Ladies, Goderitch if she remembers correctly, pulls herself to her feet and wipes at her face. 

“Oh--my Lady, I--I am so sorry, it is the _most_ improper thing, I--”

“It is all right, Mistress Goderitch,” Delphine says, mostly because it appears as though Mistress Goderitch is ready to begin wailing. “I...am sorry for…?”

“I,” Mistress Goderitch sniffs, patting at her cheeks. “Oh, my Lady, I am sorry, I only…” To Delphine’s horror, her face crumples and Delphine is left patting at Mistress Goderitch’s arms while she cries at an amazingly high pitch. “I’ve gotten myself in the most awful situation.”

She makes a faint noise, and that seems to be all the encouragement Mistress Goderitch needs. 

“There’s two men, you see, my Lady, a man my parents have promised me to and a man who’s kind to me, and, well, it’s as if I’m splitting in two with the facts of it, one is right by society and my family and yet the other--my Lady, the other is right by my heart.” 

“...Ah,” Delphine says faintly as Goderitch dabs lightly at her cheeks with a brightly-colored handkerchief she’d pulled from...somewhere. “Well that is, ah, difficult.”

“Uh _huh,”_ Godetritch says, packing the two syllables with a surprising amount of emotion. “It’s _horrible.”_

“...Yes.”

“Do you believe that the heart can be incorrect?”

“Um,” Delphine replies eloquently. 

“Or do you believe that the heart is the best judge, that can lead us to the correct path which might be hidden by society and families and,” she fumbled for the word, “misinterpretations of what we think we must do, instead of what we actually must do?”

“I--”

“Because _I do.”_ Goderitch grips at Delphine’s arms where they’d been as Delphine had--ineffectually--tried to comfort her, and with surprising strength. “Our hearts and our love are our closest links to the Divine, the most divine thing of any of us, and no matter the circumstances, they cannot steer us wrong, but only toward where we truly need to be. Don’t you think?”

“I--”

_“Don’t you think?”_

“Yes, I--yes,” Delphine stutters in the face of Goderitch’s wide, earnest eyes. “I suppose I do.”

“So we should follow our hearts, shouldn’t we? Wherever it leads us, and trust in ourselves and in our Lord that it will work out?” 

“I...suppose, following your logic--”

“Wonderful!” With a delighted squeeze of Delphine’s arms, Goderitch’s face suddenly clears into a blindingly sunny expression. “It truly is, well, something for the poets and bards, if I may, my Lady.”

“What is--” 

“It is very rare for even the court scholars to be in this library, my Lady. If I may, I can inform Mistress Niehaus where you are, whenever you’d like, my Lady.” 

“I--” 

“Only if you’d like to keep audience with her, my Lady. Of course.” 

“Of course.” Delphine blinks, feeling rather lightheaded--as if she’d just been spun in circles. 

“Wouldn’t you like to see her? My Lady?” 

Goderitch’s voice is gentler, a little uncertain, and very earnest. And doesn’t Delphine want to see Cosima? Hasn’t she ached to see Cosima again since she’d sent her away? 

Her lips still tingle where they’d met Cosima’s. Like they never had before. 

_Our hearts and are love are our closest links to the Divine._

“I would. If you could send her in at her earliest convenience.” 

Goderitch stifles a delighted squeak, and unsuccessfully attempts to cover it with a demure curtsy. “Of course, my Lady.” 

“Oh, Mistress Goderitch?” Delphine takes a breath, but a small, genuine smile creeps onto her lips regardless. “Thank you.” 

She can only hope that the weight and sincerity gets across in those two words. Based on how Goderitch’s face manages to get impossibly brighter, it does.

“Only Krystal is fine, my Lady. If I might be so bold.” 

“Krystal. Thank you.” 

Krystal nods, beaming, and slips out the door. Delphine picks up the nearest book, flips it open, and tries to read.

It has to be at least ten minutes, but she only makes it through two sentences before there’s a knock at the door.

“Come--” She has to swallow, start again. “Come in.” 

Cosima slips in, unusually subdued, cautious, still beautiful. “My Lady, Mistress Goderitch said you wished to see me?” 

“Yes, I--” Delphine glances at the door. “Come with me. There’s a book I’d like to show you.” 

Delphine crosses toward the back corner of the room, away from the windows and door. She can hear Cosima following, but she doesn’t turn to face her. 

“My Lady, I am so, so sor--”

“Mistress Niehaus.” She stops, starts again. “Cosima. I have a confession to make. I…” She closes her eyes, breathing in deep and slow. There are things that cannot be taken back. There are moments that cannot be undone. There are falls that are impossible to walk away from.

And Lord and Heaven save her, she had fallen for Cosima Niehaus. There was no way she could walk away from that.

“I cannot stop thinking about that kiss.”

“As...as it was sinful, a wrong and wretched--”

“As, there are things that are not considered--that we are not meant to consider--but that find their ways to us regardless. Things that we cannot explain. And perhaps we can deny them before others, and before Heaven--but we cannot deny them to ourselves.”

“That is nearly romantic, my Lady,” Cosima breathes, hope trembling around the edges of the words. She is so close. “And, if I may, encouraging.” 

Delphine turns around.

Either of them could have started it, or they both could’ve moved together and met in the middle, all Delphine knows is a flurry of movements and fabric and then Cosima, Cosima, Cosima.

She can feel every spot where Cosima is touching her, Cosima’s hands on her arms, Cosima’s chest pressed up against hers, where her own hands are on Cosima’s waist, her lips, their lips, every spot the most exquisite burning. Her heart is going to thrum out of her chest; her breath is shuddering half-gasps. 

She never wants to let go.

“My Lady,” Cosima whispers, and inhales sharply as Delphine grips her face, pulls her closer. “My Queen.”

Delphine swallows those words with another kiss.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You seem distracted tonight.”

“Hm?” Delphine rolls over, stretching a bit and enjoying the feeling of the luxurious bedsheets against her bare skin. Next to her, the King huffs amusedly, brushing back a bit of her hair.

“Beautiful women shouldn’t trouble their lovely heads with thoughts.”

“Hm.” Delphine lowers her eyes demurely, and kisses his hand obediently when he presses it to her mouth. “But what if those thoughts are of you, my King?”

“No need to flatter me,” the King snorts, rolling flat on his back instead of facing her. “I knew who you were when I married you, my Queen.”

“Mm.” Delphine shifts a little, arranging herself more comfortably against the pillows, letting the sheets fall away from her chest. She doesn’t need to guess where his eyes go.

“What do you do with yourself all day, hm?” He rolls over, tracing a hand along Delphine’s arm. It feels nearly clammy against her skin. “I see you so little around the castle.” 

“I read, my Lord.”

He snorts again, flicking a stray curl off her shoulder. “Again, with the studying. What do you have to study? You’ve nowhere to go beyond my court and my bed.” 

“I only wish to be well-prepared, my Lord. Should your duties call you away, and I be called upon to serve as regent--”

“Ah, I don’t drown those advisors in riches for no reason.” He moves, in that suddenly-quick way he has, grabbing her chin and pulling her face in. He smells of sweat and horse and meat. “Thinking of ruling yourself, my Queen?”

“Only of serving you best, my King.”

“Hm.” The King drags his gaze across her face. “Best keep your ambitions in check, Delphine. My last Queen was ambitious.”

“I remember her.”

“Good.” He doesn’t move. Neither does Delphine. “I will never understand this fondness for _books.”_

Delphine sighs, and bites her tongue. “You should blame my mother for that, my Lord. She was the one who oversaw my schooling.”

“Ah, yes. Your _mother.”_ He moves his hand up to her throat, rubbing a thumb along it. “I ought to thank her. She made me such a lovely toy.”

He pushes her onto her back, and she opens her lips, pliant, pleasing. “All yours, my King.” 

He kisses her lips, damp mouth working its way down her body. His breathing quickens against her skin.

There is a rich red canopy over the King’s bed, with swirls and edges in golden thread. She stares up, and traces the design with her eyes. He grips her, and she grips back with a bit too much nail, and watches the swirls of the canopy.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosima is the lady-in-waiting outside of Delphine’s chamber door when she returns, and she does not look Delphine in the eye.

“I would like some rosewater, and the fire to be stoked.”

“My Lady,” Cosima murmurs, rising to leave.

Delphine catches her by the wrist.

Cosima looks up but Delphine doesn’t look back. Doesn’t move. She closes her eyes instead, centering herself around that one point of contact.

Cosima doesn’t speak, but twists her hand and for a moment Delphine thinks she’s going to pull away--but she doesn’t, only flips her wrist so she can wrap her fingers around Delphine’s wrist without breaking contact.

Cosima’s grip tightens--but gently, tenderly, and Delphine takes a breath.

Delphine grips back.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

They fall into routine slowly, cautiously. If the walls are not watching, then they are listening, and Delphine knows that she is under more suspicion than most. And yet, there is an almost heady, reckless freedom when it comes to her and Cosima--were she keeping private conference with an advisor, a male servant--well. Even a single stolen moment would make its way to a hundred ears by nightfall.

But with Cosima, there is scarcely a batted eye. Other than from Krystal, who seems ridiculously delighted by the entire affair. Delphine perhaps should be more chastising toward a lady-in-waiting who seems to take such a vicarious joy--and in fact, a willingness to actually help with an immoral affair. 

Especially a Queen’s, which amounts to high treason.

But as the one carrying out the affair, Delphine hasn’t got much of a place to judge.

And truthfully, Krystal is an invaluable ally, the first beyond Cosima she’s found--and often like sunlight after a painfully long day of holding court and navigating all the murky waters that entails. Krystal is never short on painless, meaningless gossip about various servants Delphine has never even met, who are married or fighting or having babies, carefree and without danger.

It is a wonderful balm to the soul.

And it is what Krystal is delighting in now, chattering enthusiastically about two servants--one a kitchen worker, one a weaver, which is apparently quite scandalous--who have apparently been painfully obvious about their attraction to each other for months, but only today have been spotted kissing in a rarely-used hallway. 

“And, well, _truly,_ it has taken them far too long--perhaps now the clothes-makers will be able to focus on their duties now without those two just _staring_ between them--truly, it isn’t as if we couldn’t _all_ tell what they were imagining--and it involved the opposite of _making_ clothes.”

_“Mistress Goderitch!”_ one of the ladies hisses, scandalized, before they all descend into helpless giggles.

“Are you saying it’s _untrue?”_

“Well--no--but--” the lady glances at Delphine, who makes a show of focusing on her needlework instead of engaging. “It is _improper.”_

“Oh, Mistress Obinger, should I not mention then what Cook says she saw you getting up to in a corridor the other night?”

The room dissolves into laughter again, punctuated by Mistress Obinger’s sputtering objections. Delphine even allows a bit of a genuine smile to pull at her lips, even as she tries to refocus on her embroidery. 

“The candles are burning low,” Obinger says at last, when it’s clear the others aren’t going to let her change the subject. “We mustn’t keep my Lady up late.”

“His Majesty hasn’t requested my presence tonight.” It isn’t a question.

“No, my Lady.” The women begin packing away their various instruments and handicrafts, and Delphine folds her needlework neatly away. “Mistress Goderitch will be staying with you tonight.”

“Very good.” Delphine rises and the other women almost seem to flock around her, undressing her and helping her into a lighter nightgown. Mistress Obinger rushes a bit, trying to make a hasty exit. The others smirk at Obinger but make their own ways out a few minutes after, murmuring their good nights and blessings. Delphine responds in kind, twisting her hair into a plait down her back as she does.

Cosima normally lingers as she leaves, but tonight she slips out with the rest of them, barely bidding Delphine good-night. Krystal doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, pulling a small stool up next to the fire and a book. 

A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door.

Delphine startles, but Krystal jumps up immediately, pausing and turning back at the doorway with a grin. 

“I’ll wait outside.”

“What--” Delphine starts, but Krystal is out the door before she can ask anything.

A moment later, Cosima walks in.

“I hope I’m not intruding, my lady.” Cosima shuts the door firmly behind her, a bit of a rueful smile on her lips. “It was Mistress Goderitch’s idea, and it is...very difficult to say no to Mistress Goderitch.”

“No,” Delphine agrees, smiling wider than she has in a long time. “I have tried.”

“She offered to stay by the door tonight,” Cosima adds, a kind of hesitance creeping over her face. “Well, she insisted.”

The weight of it suddenly hits Delphine. Cosima has spent the night in her chambers before, but on duty as a lady-in-waiting and always, always with an eye on the door, waiting to be caught. 

But with Krystal outside the door--they are not safe. There is no safety for them, not here, perhaps nowhere and perhaps never--but they have been granted a respite. A moment in harbor, not in the storm. 

“My Lady--” 

“Don’t.” Cosima flinches and Delphine rises, trying to temper the bite her words had had. “I didn’t--Mistress Niehaus,” she says, finally, and Cosima looks up. “For tonight--the titles can stay outside the door.” 

_Let’s pretend,_ Delphine doesn’t say. _Let’s close our eyes and cover our ears, and call each other by our names, and take a taste of what we can’t have._

But Cosima understands.

Her face splits into a beaming smile, bright enough to make Delphine ache. 

“Delphine.”

Delphine half-laughs and half-gasps, and she reflexively covers the sudden grin on her face with her hand. Cosima steps forward, more confident now, and gently takes that hand in her own.

“Delphine,” and it is _fond,_ it is _kind,_ she can see Cosima savoring the name in her mouth, and delighting in Delphine’s reactions. Delphine, for her part, could spend hours listening to nothing other than her name rolling off Cosima’s tongue. “Delphine.”

“Cosima,” and Cosima’s smile somehow brightens even more, her fingers tangling with Delphine’s. 

“It sounds so much better when you say it.”

“Cosima,” Delphine says, because Cosima had sounded so wonderingly happy, and if it made Cosima happy how could she do anything else? “Cosima. Cosima,” and she draws their joined hands up, pressing a kiss to the back of Cosima’s. “Good evening, Cosima.”

“Good evening, Delphine.” Their hands remain linked; belatedly, Delphine realizes she hasn’t looked away from Cosima since the other woman had walked into the room. “I’ve brought you a present.”

“Oh?” 

“I hope you enjoy it.” Cosima lifts her other hand, revealing a white handkerchief with something bulging within it.

“I’m sure I will.”

“You’ve no idea what it is yet.”

“Does not matter,” Delphine replies promptly, and Cosima laughs, bright and light. Delphine crosses over to the bed, since there are few other places to sit in the room, and perches on it; Cosima barely hesitates before following to sit across from her, setting down the handkerchief between them with great flourish.

It falls open almost immediately to reveal--

_“Des fraises!”_

“If that means strawberries, then _oui,”_ Cosima grins. “I noticed you did not eat much at dinner, and remembered you mentioned being partial to them, so...”

“No, I have been feeling ill as of late--where did you find them?” Delphine asks distractedly. They are bright red and perfectly ripe, and Delphine picks one up simply to stare at it. “It has been so long since I’ve had any!”

“The King finds himself blotchy whenever he has them, so they are not seen often around court,” Cosima explains, in a bit of a rush to avoid bringing the outside world into their moment. “But I was able to slip out to the market and back with these.”

“You smuggled them in for me,” Delphine says, looking up from the berry to Cosima’s smirking face. “You are a _criminal.”_

“You’re only a criminal if you are caught.”

_“Cheeky,”_ Delphine retorts, a warm glow in her chest as Cosima laughs. She takes a bite of the berry with exaggerated ceremony, though she doesn’t need to fake her pleased noise at the burst of sweet juice across her tongue. “Though these are worth conspiring with a criminal for.” 

“Are they?” Cosima asks, snatching one up for herself. “You aren’t afraid I’ll corrupt you?” 

“Ah, Cosima,” Delphine says, a thrill still running through her as she says the name. She leans forward, picking up another berry as she does. “You see, I am _incorruptible.”_

“Well,” Cosima breaths back, leaning in even closer. “We shall see about that.” 

And then she steals Delphine’s strawberry.

_“Cosima!”_

“Easily distracted!” Cosima’s words are too covered in laughter to be actually scolding as she eats the berry in two quick bites. “For shame.”

“I thought these were a gift to me,” Delphine points out, snatching up a few berries before Cosima can reach them.

“You should learn to share.”

_“You,”_ Delphine replies, wagging finger and all. “Are incorrigible.” 

Cosima merely dips her head in a mock-curtsy, blatantly unrepentant, and reaches for another strawberry, which Delphine quickly grabs away. Undeterred, Cosima grabs Delphine’s wrist instead, dragging her hand over and eating the berry directly from Delphine’s fingers.

She glances up through her eyelashes, making direct eye contact with Delphine as she licks the juice from her fingertips.

“Brat,” Delphine says, a little more breathless than she’d planned.

“The berries are delicious,” Cosima breathes back.

“Then let me taste,” and before Cosima can respond she tangles their fingers together again and pulls Cosima forward, off balance, and into a kiss.

It’s barely a moment before Cosima is kissing her back, fingers uncurling to press against Delphine’s cheek, and it is the most natural thing to pull Cosima even closer, to drink in the moment and every part of it, to take this beautiful moment and sear it into her memory forever.

She wants to drown in Cosima Niehaus.

Cosima pulls away just barely, breathing heavy. Delphine leans forward, their foreheads pressed together, as little space between them as they can manage.

“Let’s never leave this room,” Cosima whispers. “Let’s stay here forever, where everything is simple and beautiful.”

_We can’t,_ is Delphine’s instinctive answer, her grip on Cosima tightening just a bit. _This is a stolen moment in a stolen space, fragile as spun sugar and just as lasting. Dawn will break and this will break, the world and all its treachery back again._

But she cannot deny Cosima anything.

“Yes,” she breathes, reaching up to run her fingers through Cosima’s hair, to kiss her like she was seeking air, Cosima kissing back just as desperately. “Yes, forever.”

It isn’t hers to promise, but she does anyway, looking Cosima in her beautiful, believing eyes, and promises.

“Forever, Cosima.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world comes crashing back in with the dawn, and Delphine jackknifing out of bed and half-falling as she retches into the chamber pot.

“Delphine?” There’s the rustle of blankets and Cosima’s hand on her back a moment later as Delphine spits and shoves the pot away. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Delphine says quickly, pushing away Cosima’s concern with a reassuring smile. “I mentioned last night, I haven’t been feeling…”

Realization settles, icy and hard in the pit of her stomach.

“Delphine?”

“I haven’t been feeling well these past few weeks,” Delphine repeats hollowly, “and I haven’t bled.”

She feels Cosima take a sharp breath and rock back on her heels. Delphine wraps her arms around herself and doesn’t turn around.

“How long?”

“A few months. At least three.”

Slowly, slowly, Delphine uncurls her arms and trails her hands down her abdomen. She could’ve missed it--if her nightgown wasn’t as thin, or if she hadn’t been looking for it, she could’ve missed it entirely.

But there it is, under her fingertips. A rounding, a swelling low on her belly.

_A baby._

She covers the bump with both hands, waiting for it to disappear or turn out to be an illusion of the fabric--but no, it stays, solid and when she pushes down, it pushes back.

“You are expecting,” Cosima says, the words aloud making it all real. “My congratulations and prayers to you and your Majesty. For a healthy heir.”

The real world, settling down on their shoulders to suffocate them both.

“Cosima--” _A little longer,_ Delphine wants to ask, to kiss Cosima’s hands and lips and pretend, just a little longer.

But there is no going back.

“I should go, get myself properly dressed and relieve Mistress Goderitch before the others come.”

“I can tell them you’re unwell, you can take the day--”

“I don’t need special treatment!” Cosima snaps, snatching her hand from Delphine’s back, and the loss of contact is as sharp as if Cosima had slapped her outright. “I’m nothing special.” 

“Cosima, no,” Delphine insists, stopping Cosima from rising. “That is a lie, Cosima, please.”

“What are we doing?” Cosima asks, the question they’ve both been avoiding out in the air with the rest of it. “You are my Queen, you’re carrying the heir, and I--” She cuts herself off and looks away, but not before Delphine sees the raw hurt swimming in those beautiful eyes, and it breaks her.

“You are everything.” Delphine takes one of Cosima’s hands in both of hers, desperate to make Cosima understand, trying to press back the tears rising in her own eyes. “I know that.”

“How can you say that? With all of this--” 

“It is what I know,” Delphine repeats, clutching at Cosima’s hand. Cosima doesn’t look back--but she doesn’t pull away either. “I do not know the rest, but with my heart and soul, I know you are my everything.”

“Delphine…” Cosima sobs, and Delphine pulls her close, her own tears dripping onto Cosima’s dark hair. “I want to believe you.” 

“Then do, _mon amour,_ do.”

“What will happen to us?” 

The question is more of a broken whisper than anything else, faint enough that Delphine isn’t sure she was meant to hear, but she holds Cosima closer anyway, one arm tight around Cosima’s shoulders, Cosima’s arms around her neck and face buried in Delphine’s shoulders.

Without thinking, Delphine’s other hand goes to rest on her stomach.

Cosima notices, of course, but her voice is gentle and genuinely curious when she speaks next. 

“Are you happy about the baby? Delphine?” 

The name-- _Delphine_ not _my Lady_ or _my Queen_ \--is deliberate, they both know, and Delphine lets herself breathe for just a moment before answering. 

“I do not know,” Delphine admits. “But I think I will be.” 

“Then I am happy for you. Or I will be,” Cosima says, her voice a little lighter than before. “Truly.”

“Thank you,” Delphine murmurs, leaning her head against Cosima’s. “Thank you.” 

There’s a light drumming against the door, followed by Krystal’s head peeking around the doorframe with her eyes squeezed shut.

“Half an hour until the other ladies come, my Lady,” she sing-songs, a bit too gleeful to be entirely casual. “I thought I might want to give you a bit of warning!”

“Thank you, Mistress Goderitch.” Krystal nods, eyes still tightly shut, and slips away.

“I really should go,” Cosima sighs, the two of them untangling themselves a bit reluctantly. “Let me help you back into the bed.” 

“I am not suddenly fragile,” Delphine scolds gently. Cosima ignores her happily and helps her into bed, arranging the blankets so it looked for all the world like Delphine had spent the night alone. 

“Ah, your handkerchief,” Delphine says quickly, passing over the small berry-stained cloth that had gotten mixed up in the bedsheets. Cosima folds the cloth up quickly and tucks it up a sleeve, headed for the door.

“Cosima.” Cosima stops with her hand on the door, turning back. “I would give it all to you, if I could.”

Cosima softens, gazing back at Delphine, that space between the bed and the door as wide as any yawning chasm. 

“If I had anything,” she replies, nothing but honesty and longing as she looks back into Delphine’s eyes. “It would all be for you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Slightly spoliery) Warnings this chapter for: Abelism (some specifically pertaining to infertility), pregnancy, physical abuse, sexism, non-graphic references to violence to children/child death.

The King accosts her in the hallway later that day, without even his usual show of civility and royal conduct. He wordlessly grabs her by the arm instead, half-throwing her into a side room and slamming the door. 

Delphine clenches her hands into fists to keep herself from flinching; she can already feel the blood under her nails.

“I have just come,” he says tightly, voice close to shaking, “from a meeting with my advisors, and I have noticed the _most interesting trend._ Do you have any idea what that could be?”

“I think that you’ll tell me, my Lord.” 

He grabs her by the forearm, _hard,_ jerking her forward. The King only has a few inches of height on her, but she never feels his height more keenly than when he is in a mood.

She doesn’t enjoy the feeling of being towered over.

“I have noticed that more and more, my advisors are greatly sympathetic to the French.” His breath is ragged and hot as he forces her backward. She already knows there are going to be bruises on her arm when she looks next. “Where could they have gotten such ideas?”

“My Lord, I am sure I don’t know what you’re implying.” 

“Do _not_ play games with me,” he growls, and Delphine hits the wall. “Have I not been clear? I do not like my women meddling in my affairs.”

Delphine feels herself rankling despite the circumstances. “I have had _nothing_ to do with that.” 

“Lying seems to be your natural state, so I’ll give you _one more chance.”_

The wise thing in this situation would be to back down and go soft under his hands, to soothe his hurting ego and manage the fallout later.

But Delphine Cormier has always had her pride, and _despises_ being falsely accused.

“My King, if I were trying to take your throne, _I would already have it.”_

Pain explodes in her arm as he squeezes and twists, his other hand pulling back and his face curled into a snarl--

_“You will not strike your heir’s vessel!”_

He freezes.

So does she.

“You’re pregnant?”

“I noticed this morning.” He lowers his hand, glaring suspiciously up and down her body. “I haven’t bled in months, and have been feeling--”

“Show me.”

“My Lord?” 

_“Show me,”_ and it is not a request. She frees her aching wrist and reaches around to unlace the thick over-gown, the angle awkward and pulling on the abused muscles. It wasn’t really designed for Delphine to get out of alone.

With a bitten-off growl, the King reaches around and jerks it open himself, shoving the gown down off her body. He attacks the petticoats next, with enough force that she can hear fabric ripping. 

Delphine doesn’t dare make a sound. She hardly needs to be there at all, only her body and her womb. They had been her main selling points, after all, when she’d served the former Queen and, under her mother’s careful instruction, had caught the King’s eye. It was hardly surprising that they were what he chose to focus on now. 

He slows at last, stops. Delphine stands before him, in nothing but her plain linen shift, layers of rich fabric heaped at her feet. 

His hands press against her abdomen. She fights not to pull away.

“Have you seen any doctors?” 

“No, my Lord.”

“I will send for them. The best of them. Midwives, as well. We’ll organize festivities for the announcement, and start preparations for the christening as well. It will be the grandest christening this kingdom has ever seen.”

He grabs her face and pulls her up into a bruising kiss, pushing her head back into the rough stone wall. He breaks off--just enough for her to gasp for air, his hand hard and his breath hot on her face.

“Pray for a son. For the kingdom’s sake...and your own.”

He releases her and stalks from the room, without a glance back.

“I’ll call in one of your women to get you cleaned up.”

“I will pray, my Lord,” she calls after him. “For a child who is healthy, and strong, and worthy of ruling this kingdom.”

_I will pray for a child who is nothing like you._

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The news of a coming royal heir sends the castle into a frenzy like nothing Delphine has seen before.

WIthin hours of the King finding out about the child, the castle swarms with attendants carefully covering or removing any artwork that are anything near to frightening or disturbing--she and Cosima nearly tripped over one who’d been sent into the library with the job of sorting through each book and removing any that could potentially terrorize Delphine and therefore the heir. Weeks pass, and the fervor seems to build instead of abate.

After the years of anticipation and disappointment surrounding the last Queen, the King was willing to give anything for a male heir. 

Delphine finds herself barred from all but a select few of public engagements, pulled out every now and then to be trotted out alongside the King, swelling belly on full and proud display. The King smiles often, then. 

He smiles less at the castle. Tensions flaring at home--rebellions and uprisings that couldn’t be quelled with the promise of a new royal babe and demands of patriotism. On a larger scale, from the whispers and information Delphine overhears and steals, trade deals and treaties are being lobbed back and forth, tempers and the peace itself fraying under the strain.

And the King’s ministers continually seem to side with Delphine.

Or at least, with whatever the King believes Delphine’s opinions to be. She’s never been fool enough to voice her beliefs about anything, especially within these cursed walls, but somehow the ministers began to advise against whatever the King wanted, to voice thoughts that the King suspects Delphine of having. 

The King doesn’t dare raise a hand, or even his voice against Delphine while she carries his heir--but he no longer speaks with her either. Orders all of those around them to serve her every whim and wish, without looking at her.

She’s safe as long as she bears this child.

The after, she will deal with after.

And yet, despite her firm commitment to ignoring the looming problems, time passes and soon nearly six months have gone by since that fateful morning she first realized she was carrying.

“Is there anything else we can bring to you, my Lady?”

“No, thank you.” The tension and excitement of the castle has bled down to her ladies-in-waiting, all of them finding convenient reasons to hover around her bed even after she’s managed to get herself and her growing stomach situated in bed.

“Is the room comfortable?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Can we--”

“I think,” Delphine interrupts gently, smiling fondly at the women hovering around her, “that perhaps I should get some rest, yes?”

There’s an immediate chorus of agreement, apologies, and blessings as the ladies file out. Krystal is last, winking brightly at Delphine before slipping away.

A few moments later, Cosima returns.

“I’ve brought you something,” she calls, grinning, and as easily as that Delphine feels herself pulled into that light that Cosima seems to simply be, tension she didn’t realise she was carrying sliding off of her shoulders. 

_“Qu’est-ce que?”_

“Is that French for ‘thank you, Cosima, I’m so delighted to see you?’” Cosima teases, the two falling easily into the equal roles they assumed behind closed doors. 

“That depends on what you’ve brought me.” 

With a small flourish both completely unnecessary and that Delphine had come to expect, Cosima pulls a lumpy handkerchief from her sleeve and offers it to Delphine. 

“An orange!” With a small delighted noise, Delphine holds the small, lumpy fruit up to her nose and inhales before eagerly tearing at the skin. “Cosima, how did you know?” 

“I saw the way you were staring at them at breakfast,” Cosima explains, coming to perch next to Delphine on the bed. 

“You are _wonderful,”_ Delphine murmurs around a mouthful of sticky orange, closing her eyes in bliss.

“I am becoming envious of a fruit, in honesty.” Delphine opens her eyes just enough to half-glare at Cosima, who only laughs in reply. “You know if you mentioned a passing fondness for oranges, the King would have the finest brought in to you by nightfall.”

“I know.” Delphine pops another orange segment into her mouth. “But there is something special about the ones you bring me.”

“You say the sweetest things.” Cosima smirks, moving just a bit closer to Delphine. “I suppose it suits that sweet tooth of yours.”

“Do you know what would be exquisite with this? Some fish.”

“Less sweet,” Cosima says, wrinkling her nose. 

“It is not my fault! The baby, he wants,” Delphine explains with a little too much wide-eyed earnesty. Cosima is not fooled in the slightest.

“The baby is going to be a very... _interesting_ ruler if his early cravings are any inclination.”

“But a good one, I hope.” The orange long-gone, Delphine settles against the pillows again. Her hands seem to always go to her belly, no matter what she’s doing. An instinct to cradle and protect already making itself known, even though she hadn’t seen the child yet. 

“A good one, I’m sure.” 

“I hope so much for him,” Delphine admits in a rush. “So many things, and they mostly involve taking him far away from here.”

The words are treasonous, but in this room with only the two of them, it is so easy to give in to everything she tries so hard to suppress. It is dangerously easy to forget what lies beyond the closed door. 

“I think many mothers would want to take their infants far from this den of wolves.” Cosima looks down at Delphine’s belly, that same look she always has when talking about the baby crossing her face. It’s an impossible topic to avoid, especially now as they make preparations for the infant’s arrival and Delphine’s stomach somehow grows even larger. Another reminder of the things keeping the two of them apart. “A boy, then?” 

“The astrologers and physicians all say so,” Delphine replies, absent-mindedly rubbing circles over her stomach. “Of course, with the King so determined, I am not sure any of them would dare say anything different.” 

“Everyone is praying for the two of you.” Cosima hesitates, so unlike her. “I am, as well.”

“Thank you.” It’s too formal for this, one of their stolen and secret nights. Delphine wants to reach out to Cosima, to ask her what’s the matter, to assure her that everything will be all right. 

But she has never known how to reach out or comfort, and she doesn’t want to lie to Cosima when she doesn’t have to.

“When I am to begin my lying-in--to go into seclusion--before the baby is born,” she says instead, “I am only meant to have one or two of my ladies with me. Would you be one of them?” 

“Of course,” Cosima says immediately, looking up and into Delphine’s eyes. “You don’t even need to ask.”

“Good.” Delphine smiles, an honest smile. “I cannot lean down to kiss you with this stomach in the way, so will you please kiss me?”

An honest smile grows on Cosima’s face as well. “Again, Delphine, you don’t even need to ask.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning, Delphine returns from breakfast, and something is wrong.

Her ladies--and she has begun to think of them as that, _her ladies,_ the women including Krystal and Cosima who she spends nearly all of her time with and, despite herself, even like--stop speaking the moment she walks in. 

None of them look at her.

“What?” She doesn’t bother with formalities or politeness. “What is it?” 

“My Lady,” Mistress Obinger says slowly, “have you spoken with his Majesty today?” 

“No, he--he took his meal early today.” Delphine hesitates where she stands, trying to read something--anything--from the faces of the women around her. “What has happened?”

There’s a silence like a blade against her throat.

Cosima steps forward.

“There were rumors around the castle this morning, my Lady.”

“There are always rumors around the castle.”

“These appear to be true.” Cosima takes a deep breath, tries to gather herself. Delphine presses her hands to her belly, her heart thrumming in her ears. 

“My Lady, Lady Duncan has come to court. The former Queen is returned to court.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Why is Lady Duncan at court?”

The King does not look up when she enters his study. “I didn’t call you here.”

“There was a time you welcomed my little interruptions.” He signs some royal edict or other, then turns away to begin reading another. “My Lord.” 

“She came to the castle late last night, requesting shelter. Was I meant to turn her away? Especially in her condition?”

_Yes,_ Delphine bites back, crossing over to stand in front of his desk instead. “She didn’t tell you when she was leaving, I presume.” 

“She will stay as long as she needs to. She understands that she is dependent on the hospitality of the court.”

“She is dependent on your hospitality, my Lord. And you seemed eager to give it.”

“What is it, Delphine?” he asks at last, looking up from his papers. “Does Rachel threaten you?” 

Rachel. Not her title, not the former queen, but Rachel.

“I constantly fear losing you, my Lord.” She moves forward, trailing one hand along the desk, the other conspicuously rubbing her stomach. “Can you blame me?”

“I suppose not.” He leans back in his chair, staring up at her, that old hungry look in his eyes. “You’ve wanted me since that first day I saw you.”

“I worry that she will come between us,” Delphine deflects, neither confirming nor denying. “That she will harm our child.” 

The King barks out a laugh at that, shaking his head. “Rachel can’t walk across a room, and you believe she poses a threat to the coming prince? This is nothing but petty jealousy, and if you think that barren wench has any hold over me--” 

There’s a knock on the chamber door.

“Yes?” 

“I don’t want t-to interrupt.” Delphine stills, drawing her hands off the desk and protectively over her stomach. The King sits up, eyes going to the door.

“Not at all. Come in.” 

The door opens, slow, and neither the King nor Delphine looks away.

Rachel Duncan smiles.

Delphine hasn’t seen that face in months, not since before the wedding, not since that woman was perched at the King’s right hand, made of grace and elegance and ice. She’d been so beautiful then, a hostess, a negotiator, a dancer--every part of her sleek lines like the muscles rippling beneath a wolf pelt. 

She is not like that now.

She stumbles when she lets go of the door handle, both hands steadying her against her cane. The cane echoes against the stone floors, a sharp sound against the shuffling and dragging of her feet and skirts as she moves forward. It’s slow, unsteady, graceless. 

Pitiful. 

After several moments of this, Rachel looks up, a half-embarrassed grimace on her face.

Half her face looks the same as it had before, sharp lines and a piercing, cold eye. A swoop of fabric, the same dark grey as her gown, covers the other half.

“Ap-pologies, m-mmm, Majesties, c-could I immpose…” 

“Delphine, help her.” 

It’s hardly as if she can refuse. 

“Lady Duncan,” she says smoothly, crossing and offering her arm. “It is good to see you back at court, and so well.”

“I thank you, and you as w-well.” Rachel takes her arm, with a small smile. Her nails bite into Delphine’s arm through her sleeve. “You s-seem to be glowing.”

“Thank you.” Across the room, the King stands and pulls the chair out from behind the desk, gesturing for Rachel to sit. 

“Oh, no, m-my Lord, I don’t wish to be tr-rouble,” she says, hand twisting where it’s clutching at Delphine. It could be explained as a spasm, the sort that the former Queen had been said to suffer after her accident. It could have been a result of her losing her balance for a moment. 

Delphine does not think it was either.

“I only came to offer congr--grr--” Rachel closes her eye, her lips working for a moment. “Well-wishes for your child.”

“Thank you,” the King says graciously, Delphine echoing the sentiment.

“M-motherhood is so wonderful, isn’t it?”

“I shall soon know.” 

“Mm.” Rachel nods a bit at that, still leaning on Delphine. “It is a shame I arrived so c-close to your lying-in. We have s-so much catching up to do.”

The lying-in. That monthlong period before the birth that Delphine will be required to go into seclusion and stay in bed, in a small dark room, isolated from all but a few ladies-in-waiting, midwives, and doctors. 

That period during which Delphine will be isolated from the King entirely.

Rachel only smiles. 

_This was no coincidence._

“That is all I c-came to say,” Rachel continues, but some of Delphine’s revelation must show on her face, because Rachel looks up at Delphine and has the audacity to look confused, even a little lost. “I s-seem to be here at a b... _bad_ time, I shall see myself out.” 

Rachel’s voice is small, her body twisted and hunched in a way no person’s should be, and though Delphine knows Rachel well, for a moment she doubts. 

“Delphine,” the King says quickly. “Help Lady Duncan out.” 

Rachel is still looking at Delphine, her posture every bit frail and weak, a perfect painting of modesty, injury, and embarrassment. 

But she looks Delphine in the eye, and she grins. 

“At your mercy, Lady Cormier.” 

It is only a few steps over to the door, not long even with Rachel’s shuffling steps, but the icy fear suddenly running down Delphine’s spine makes the trek feel painfully long. Rachel lets the door slam behind her, the noise echoing through her head. 

“You see, Delphine?” The King reaches for another edict, gaze already far away. “You have nothing to fear from Rachel.”

_Oh, my Lord,_ Delphine thinks, _I think you are very wrong._

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She does not see Rachel again in the days leading up to her lying-in.

She also does not see the King.

Beneath her hands, her baby kicks, hard and desperate, and for the first time in a very long time Delphine prays.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Is there anything else we can bring you, your Majesty?”

“Perhaps some sunlight?” 

The midwife, a woman called Madame Alexis with dark hair poking out from her coif, thick dark eyebrows, and a very no-nonsense attitude, only sniffs disapprovingly at Delphine’s weak attempt at a joke. 

“We have opened one window and left it only loosely covered, your Majesty, which is already inadvisable. Any more light or exposure to such things as wind or changes in temperature could be quite disastrous to your health and the health of the infant.” 

“Of course. Thank you, Madame Alexis.” 

“In that case, respectfully, I shall take my leave of you. I will return in two hours to check on your health and deliver your meal. Please rest until such time, your Majesty.” With a stiff nod, Madame Alexis does just that, ducking under a layer of tapestries before reaching the chamber door and thus preventing any glimpse of outside from creeping into the chamber. It isn’t until she hears the door shut, softly but firmly, that Delphine lets herself lean back into the pillows and take in the room that, from now until a month after the birth of her child, will be her entire world.

It is not particularly welcoming.

The room is small, made to seem smaller by the large bed that Delphine feels rather dwarfed by and that she is currently confined to. The walls are not visible, but draped entirely in rich tapestries. She’s sure they are beautiful, made by only the finest artisans and in threads of gold and silver. 

If only she could see them clearly. 

Instead, there are only a few weak sunbeams making their way around the edges of yet another tapestry pinned over a cracked-open window, just enough light to turn the room into a mess of shadows.

“I will go mad in this room,” she predicts aloud. 

Next to her bed, both Cosima and Krystal laugh.

“Hush,” Delphine grumbles, aiming a glare at both of them. “I am your Queen and trapped in a very serious predicament. It is too dim to even _read_ in here.”

“I apologize, my Lady,” Krystal says, “but I don’t believe either of us are brave enough to stand up to Madame Alexis.” 

“I cannot blame either of you,” Delphine sighs. She is ready and willing to withstand anything to give her child the best chances possible--but already, she does _not_ like this room. A few moments of silence pass, without even a whisper of footfalls from outside, and Delphine sits up.

“I am sorry,” she begins, and hears both Cosima and Krystal lean forward. The energy in the room shifts immediately, less of a sickroom and more of a war room. “I will not ask either of you to oppose Madame Alexis--but I need to ask your help with something else.”

Krystal nods decisively. 

“Anything,” Cosima vows, and she doesn’t hesitate, and it is nearly enough to send Delphine to tears.

“I cannot leave this bed, but I need to know what Lady Duncan is doing. Everything she is doing. Krystal, you are brilliant at discovering all of the gossip in the castle--I need you now to focus on those about Lady Duncan.” 

“The castle is already swarming with whispers,” Krystal replies, looking completely overjoyed at being tasked with listening to gossip under royal orders. “Some of them are sure to be false but I will bring as many back to you as I can.” 

“Thank you,” Delphine says, sincerely, reaching out to squeeze Krystal’s hand. “Do your best to not be noticed, or to appear as harmless as you can. I do not want her becoming suspicious of you.”

“I am an _expert_ at infiltration,” Krystal gushes back, wrapping both her hands around Delphine’s. “I will not let you down.”

“I do not believe you will,” Delphine promises. 

“What do you need from me?” Cosima leans forward, eyes earnest and jaw set, determined. 

“Cosima, we need to make sure all appears well and normal. I will need you to stay with me as much as possible, perhaps even take on Krystal’s duties as well so suspicion does not fall on her--it cannot be obvious she has a task other than waiting on me. If you can, also carry messages to the King from me, since he will not be allowed near the chamber.” 

“I understand,” Cosima nods, though Delphine can hear the small discontented note lurking there. Krystal grabs Cosima’s hand and places it on top of Delphine’s, so the three of them have their hands wrapped around each other’s. 

“We are exactly as...as…” Krystal falters before recovering. “I do not know of any others, but we are a _powerful_ trio and I have faith in _all_ of us.” 

“I have faith in each of you,” Delphine counters, looking them each in the eye in turn. “All my faith in you.” 

She and Cosima both end up vaguely horrified when Krystal responds by tearing up.

“My Lady, that is...that is the _kindest_ thing that has ever been said to me.” 

“I have faith as well, Krystal,” Cosima adds, which mainly serves to send Krystal into further tears.

“I cannot thank either of you enough for doing this for me.” 

“I do it gladly,” Cosima says, looking Delphine steadily in the eye as she says it, her hand wrapped tight around Delphine’s. 

“As do I,” Krystal chokes out, though it seems to lead to a fresh wave of tears. Abruptly she gasps, loud and sudden enough that both Delphine and Cosima startle. 

“Krystal?”

“Emotional disturbance!” Krystal pulls away immediately, covering her face and attempting to smother her own cries--which mainly results in an odd hiccuping, keening noise. “It is bad for the baby--oh, how could I--”

“It is all right,” Delphine tries, but it is too late as Krystal half-runs to the door. 

“I apologize-- _so sorry,”_ she squeaks, trying to find the door while keeping her face completely obscured. “I shall return when I have collected myself, my Lady!” 

And with that, she manages to find her way to the door and disappears.

“Well,” Cosima says after a moment. “That was a...very Krystal response to that.”

Delphine chuckles despite herself. “Yes, it was.” 

“You’re putting her in more danger than me.” The comment sobers the mood immediately, and Delphine takes a deep breath. “Having her become a snoop is a lot more risky than trying to pretend everything is fine.”

“You cannot say she isn’t suited to it.” 

“The issue isn’t that, it’s that you seem terrified of Lady Duncan and yet you’ll throw Krystal right to her.”

“I think you underestimate Krystal. And, Cosima...I want to keep you safe. Of course I want to keep you safe.” 

“I don’t want to be safe if it’s at the expense of someone else!” Cosima reacts instantly, pulling her hand from Delphine’s. “Is Krystal somehow less valuable than I am? Is that your call to make?”

“It _is_ my call to make and of _course_ I do not think that!” Krystal may have thought she was causing emotional disturbance by crying, but that was nothing compared to this. “Cosima, you could not gather information the way Krystal can. And you are already in far more danger than she is.” 

Cosima goes silent at that, a dangerous, sharp silence.

“What do you mean.” 

“Cosima…” Delphine shakes her head, but already knows Cosima will not let this go. “It is not a secret that I am fond of you.” 

“I thought we were being careful.” 

“Of course we have been.” The baby kicks, and Delphine winces, folding her hands over her stomach. “But there is no way to be _safe._ Not at court. And not from her.” 

“Why is she such a problem?” It’s the question Delphine knew Cosima was going to ask, and the question Delphine desperately doesn’t want to answer. “Why is Lady Duncan so focused on you?”

“You know she is the former queen,” Delphine tries to deflect, and Cosima sees through it immediately.

“If that’s all she was, you wouldn’t be so frightened of her.”

“It is complicated.”

“I’m not stupid.” 

“No, you are not.” There is no way around this, but Delphine takes a few moments before answering anyway. “She hates me because I am her.” 

Cosima thinks that over for half a heartbeat. “I know I said I wasn’t stupid, but I am going to need more explanation than that.”

“When Lady Duncan was queen, she and the King travelled through France. One of the places where they stopped was my family’s castle.” 

“And what, the King fell in love with you at first sight?” 

_“Non,_ this was several months before their divorce. My mother convinced Lady Duncan to take me on as a lady-in-waiting.”

“Oh.” There’s another silence as Cosima draws the connections; Delphine does not look at her as she does. “So is this a thing, then?”

“What?” 

“This.” Cosima makes a vague gesture toward the two of them. “Ladies-in-waiting committing treasonous adultery with the royalty they serve.”

“Is that what you think you are to me?” 

“It does seem like a theme.” 

“Cosima, the point I am trying to make is that it is _not_ meant to happen. With the King and I, it was...my mother was ambitious. And so was I. That is all.” 

“You fucked him for his throne.”

The words are meant to wound. Delphine does not flinch.

“Did you suspect anything different?” 

“I thought--you could’ve at least _denied_ it.” 

There are a hundred things she could say to Cosima. That she had been so desperate to escape the castle where she’d been suffocating underneath her mother’s thumb. That the King had been kind, once, when he’d been infatuated with her. That she’d looked at the power, the riches, the _freedom_ that a marriage to the King would’ve meant and convinced herself that was close enough to love. Convinced herself that "close enough" was enough to live on.

That she is so tired, and so afraid, and she doesn’t want to lie to Cosima.

“The affair did not last long,” she says instead. “Mostly in writing and in secret conversations. There was minimal _fucking,”_ she adds, the crude English word falling hard from her lips. “And I am sure that Rachel knew.” 

“And she didn’t have you killed?”

“I was the King’s favorite, once.” She shrugs, light and casual. “Nobody can lay a hand on the King’s favorite.” 

_And once you fall from that, nobody can save you._

“Lady Duncan was already Queen when they both visited the castle.” 

“They’d been married for over a year, yes.” 

“Then the King didn’t divorce Lady Duncan because of you. Didn’t he claim the divorce was because they’d never…” 

“Of course they’d consummated, Cosima. You mustn’t ever believe the claims Kings make to divorce their Queens.” The words feel slimy in her mouth, leaving a bitter sting behind. “He sought a divorce when the Queen’s accident damaged her. He found her unnattractive, and they feared she was barren.”

Cosima lets out a long breath, almost amused. “I thought you were going to say the King orchestrated the accident.”

Delphine stays silent.

“Oh, God.” 

“It was not the King’s idea, I know. And not the Chief Minister either--why the King did not simply charge the two of them with adultery, I do not know. I believe all that happened was someone had an idea, and the King simply...did not stop it.” 

“Did you know? Delphine,” Cosima presses, when she doesn’t get an answer right away. “Did you know?”

“I knew whispers,” Delphine admits, her eyes pressed shut. “Only whispers. I did nothing.”

“I know, that’s my _point._ You didn’t stop them.” Cosima presses her hands over her face, sitting back and away from Delphine. “You let it happen to her.” 

“I wasn’t the only one!” Delphine objects, but it’s the wrong thing and she knows it as soon as it leaves her lips. “Cosima, please, I had to.”

“You had to. Had to let a horse fling Lady Duncan off its back, trample her--they say her bones healed back wrong, that her eye was crushed completely--”

“So I should have done what? I was a lady-in-waiting, the same as you, I was meant to oppose the King, throw away what I had spent my life working toward for _her?”_

“You’re saying it was completely out of your hands, that you couldn’t do _anything.”_

“Cosima, this is a den of wolves and killers. There’s no place for kindness here, there’s no place for gentleness. That is what I’m trying to tell you, this was never supposed to happen. You and I were never supposed to happen.” 

“You know, I kind of understood that from all the laws against adultery and immoral behavior--”

“Not the physical! Cosima, I am not talking about the physical,” and Delphine isn’t sure if she’s arguing or begging anymore. “I was not meant to fall for you. I did not want to,” and there she is, raw and open, before Cosima. “But I have.”

“I can’t listen to this.” Cosima stands, and Delphine reaches out, her hand falling short. “I can’t believe this.” 

“Cosima, please, you must understand--” 

“I’ll send Krystal in if I see her.” 

“Cosima--” but she moves out the door, much faster than Delphine in her overburdened state, and is gone.

And Delphine is alone.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“--and there are also those saying Lady Duncan’s mother is secretly alive and has many daughters that all look identical to Lady Duncan hidden across many kingdoms, but I am nearly certain that those are false.”

“But the rumors that the King has been meeting privately with Lady Duncan?”

“They seem to be true.” Krystal finishes her report with a slight grimace, and Delphine waves off the apology before Krystal can even make it. 

“Thank you, Krystal. That’s all very good information.” And it was, really--when she had a focus, Krystal could gather intelligence better than even the most determined spy. There had only been a few times today when she’d had to interrupt a long tangent on clothing or hairstyles.

“There is something else,” Krystal adds, hesitantly. 

“Yes?”

“There were rumors that Mistress Niehaus was seen crying behind the stables today. Many seem to think that it’s boy trouble.” 

“I see.” Krystal’s earnest gaze is burning into the side of Delphine’s face, but she only closes her eyes briefly, without answering. 

“It has been three days, my Lady. Should I tell her you’d like to speak with her.” 

“No.” 

“But wouldn’t you like to?” Krystal presses, abandoning any pretenses of professionalism. “Speak with her, or see her?” 

“That is not the issue, Krystal.”

“I would think that’s the only issue. My Lady,” Krystal tacks on at the end, a little belatedly. “I suspect that she wants to see you.” 

“I cannot go to her. If she wants to see me, she will have to come here.” Krystal still looks confused, her lip pouting out in a way that suggests she will not let the subject drop until she’s satisfied. She and Cosima are so different, but so alike sometimes they could almost be sisters. “I cannot tell Cosima to come see me. It will be an order coming from me, and she will not appreciate that.”

“But you want to see her.” 

It’s not a question, and so Delphine doesn’t answer.

“I will not force her. I will understand if she doesn’t. But she will have to come to me.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days later, while Madame Alexis lectures Delphine for sneaking in books other than the Bible, Cosima walks in with her breakfast tray.

“Your Majesty, are you listening?”

“Of course,” she replies automatically, still blinking at Cosima. Cosima, for her part, behaves much more naturally, simply placing the breakfast tray at Delphine’s bedside table and taking up a spot just to the side of Krystal. 

Krystal looks like she might vibrate out of her skin with glee.

“We are all on the same side here, your Majesty, to help you deliver a healthy babe and prince. But to accomplish that, you must follow my advice.” 

“I understand, thank you for your time, Madame Alexis.” 

Madame Alexis bristles a bit at the clear dismissal, but also cannot object, and exits in a flounce of skirts that almost hide her huff of annoyance.

“Um, I’ve just remembered, I have to--well--I think that there might be some rumors--in fact I’m sure, there are some people saying some very interesting things at this very moment! On the other side of the castle. So I am going to...go. Listen to those. Rumors.”

“You can hear that from here, can you?” Despite it all, Delphine can’t resist teasing, and Krystal shoots Delphine a betrayed glare. As if she’d actually thought Cosima was buying her story.

“Yes, I--” She freezes, thinks hard for a moment. “Yes,” she settles on finally, holding her head high and marching out the door. 

Neither she nor Cosima bother to hide their laughter once the door closes. There’s no mocking in it, only fondness. 

Once it’s gone, neither seem to know what to do. 

“You brought me breakfast,” Delphine says at last. She winces as soon as she’s said it--baldly stating the obvious. She could do so much better than that. 

But as always, it doesn’t seem to matter how many languages she can speak or how many hours she’s spent studying the arts of politics, negotiation, and seduction. It all falls away when she even speaks to Cosima. 

“I did,” Cosima answers, pouring out a cup of water. Delphine took it without thinking. “It is my duty, as one of your few ladies-in-waiting. And I have been neglecting my duties of late.” 

Something rocklike forms in the pit of her belly, but Delphine’s voice is steady when she speaks. “Is that what we are, then? A Queen and her lady-in-waiting?” 

“No,” Cosima says after a long moment, and suddenly Delphine can breathe again. “I don’t think we were ever just that. And even if we were, it’s not as if we could simply...go back.” 

“No,” Delphine agrees, trying not to sound too eager. “How would you like to then...move forward?”

“I think we first need to talk,” Cosima says, pulling the tray off Delphine’s bedside table and settling it over Delphine’s lap and large stomach. Delphine glances from the porridge, toasted bread, poached eggs, and bacon, back to Cosima. 

“We are going to have this talk over breakfast?”

“You still need to eat,” Cosima says logically. “And there is only so long Krystal will be able to amuse herself chasing imagined rumors.” 

“That is fair.” Delphine adjusts herself into a position that is almost comfortable--she is already dreading the idea of her next pregnancy, and cursing the concept of _the heir and the spare_ \--before looking up at Cosima expectantly. “What did you want to talk about?”

Cosima looks pointedly at the food on the tray. Delphine cuts up a bit of egg and places it in her mouth before Cosima finally starts. 

“You researched me, didn’t you?”

Delphine nods, cutting up a bit more egg. “I looked into the family and personal history of all my ladies.”

“Well, over the past couple of days, I’ve been doing my own research. Into you.” 

The egg suddenly rubbery on her tongue, Delphine swallows hard before speaking.

“That is...fair, I suppose.” 

Cosima looks directly into Delphine’s eyes, and there is so much caring and empathy, warmth and gentleness in those brown eyes that Delphine wants to look away.

There is so much caring and empathy, warmth and gentleness that Delphine can’t look anywhere but at Cosima. 

“You never told me your brother was murdered.”

Delphine’s breath catches suddenly in her throat, like it has not done for a very long time, and suddenly she is twelve years old and she is screaming into her hands because she can’t be found, she can’t be found and she can’t cry but she can’t hold in the screams and it is dark, it is so dark and _no one is coming to help--_

“The official story is that he died in an accident.”

“The official stories lie. I’ve learned to read between the lines.”

No longer hungry, Delphine pushes the tray away. It’s easier to deal with what is in front of her than the past, and so that is what she does. “So what does that mean? Because I have a tragic path, suddenly you are fine with everything I have done?” 

_“No,”_ Cosima says immediately, face twisting a bit--and there is the hurt and betrayal on her face as she drops her gaze. “You don’t get blanket forgiveness because your past hurt you. But it does mean that I understand.”

Delphine doesn’t say anything, because she can feel a thousand quavering, hopeful words on the tip of her tongue and she can’t afford to let any of them go. 

“I didn’t know--or, well, I didn’t want to know everything that goes on here, or what lengths people are willing to go to. I didn’t want to think about the fact that this really is a dangerous place. But I understand it now. Just how much danger you’re in, all the things that you have to lose, and why you’ve had to do the things you’ve done, and make the decisions you’ve made. You were surviving.”

Delphine bites her lip, because there is so much emotion swelling inside of her that is too intense and too _much_ for her to even name, and if she opens her mouth it will all come spilling out.

But that doesn’t stop her eyes from welling up, or her hand from reaching out and clutching Cosima’s. Their fingers tangle together naturally, easily. A river joining the ocean. 

She could tell Cosima it was the first time anyone had said anything like that to her.

She could tell Cosima she loved the fact that she hadn’t been able to accept it, that the purity and empathy that spilled from Cosima easily as water was something so wondrous. 

She could tell Cosima about how she’d been crouched in a hiding spot she’d found when she and her brother were playing, a spot she’d outgrown so her elbows and knees were all scrunched together too-tight, and the sound her brother had made when he hit the ground, and the way she’d known with cruel clarity as soon as the light had gone out of him that she was alone in the world.

She could tell Cosima that when they were together, she didn’t feel alone.

But none of those words were enough. 

Instead, Delphine lifts their joined hands, bows her head, and kisses the back of Cosima’s hand. She’s seen the motion before, has had her own hand kissed a thousand times. A symbol of respect, of courtesy, of fidelity. Of devotion.

She understands it now. 

“Delphine,” and it’s just a breath, Cosima moving her hand to cup Delphine’s cheek. Delphine kisses Cosima’s palm, and hears Cosima inhale, sharp and shaky.

She looks up and all she can see is Cosima’s eyes, wide and dark. She knows Cosima can see the tears in her own eyes. 

Cosima half-falls as she leans forward, taking Delphine’s face in both her hands and kissing her with enough force to push Delphine back into the pillows. Delphine surges back up with the same force, wrapping her arms around Cosima and pulling her close, as close as they can get. Cosima stops to breathe and Delphine makes a sound that is almost a sob, and then they are kissing again, the world falling away and all of Delphine’s senses consumed by Cosima, Cosima, Cosima.

Finally, without breaking their embrace, Cosima pulls away.

“I think there’s something between us.” 

Delphine looks down at the way Cosima is leaning around her stomach, unable to straddle her because of a combination of her skirts and the bump, and cannot do anything about the helpless laughter that spills out of her. Cosima snorts, which only sets Delphine off further, especially when Cosima shoots her a look that is half mortification and half betrayal. 

“I don’t think this is very Queen-like behavior.”

“All the unladylike things we have done, and it is my laughter that offends you?”

“That is a fair point.” Delphine shifts so she is laying on her side and over to the edge of the bed. Cosima doesn’t need any prompting; she crawls in almost immediately, her face only inches from Delphine’s. Their foreheads are touching, Delphine cannot see beyond Cosima, and it is beautiful.

“What shall we say if someone comes in?”

Delphine trails her fingers down Cosima’s arm. “That I was cold, and you are doing me a great service by keeping me warm.” 

“What a cunning Queen this country has,” Cosima murmurs, but it is not chastising, only teasing, and Delphine feels grateful enough to shatter. “You know, there is one other reason I was able to understand your dislike of Lady Duncan.”

“Oh? What was that?”

“I met her.” It’s Delphine’s turn to snort inelegantly, Cosima grinning back. “Seriously, that woman…” 

“Yes,” Delphine agrees. “She is...certainly something.”

“She is _terrifying._ Also, just a bitch. A massive bitch.”

“As I am under orders from the King to treat Lady Duncan with respect, I cannot agree with you. However,” she adds, “I am not going to disagree with you either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys...I am just so blown away by the response to the first chapter! I was so so petrified to post this after so long away, but you are all just so kind and it just...truly takes my breath away. Thank you!! I hope this chapter meets your expectations. I am travelling in the morning (and haven't packed yet...) so it may take me a day or two to respond to your comments, but know that I read and treasure every single one. Y'all are shining stars and I can't thank you enough.
> 
> <3


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery warnings for: Abelism (said by characters we love), childbirth, homophobia (again said by characters we love, not just the bad guys)

_Dear Lady Queen,_

_I trust you are well. I hope you are obeying the midwives and doctors and keeping healthy for the sake of our babe. I look forward to meeting our Prince._

_Your King and humble Servant_

“This is all he sent?”

“Yes.” 

Delphine sighs, folding the small letter up and setting it aside. She’d sent the King letters and letters, some pages long, trying to hold onto his mind, his interest. Krystal came back nearly every day with stories of meetings between the King and Lady Duncan, or Lady Duncan and the advisors. Despite her condition, she was said to be smart, and charming, and gaining favors.

In short, a danger.

The King had sent her three letters in this time, all short and nearly the same. Before, in their courtship, he’d written her poems, or prose so drenched in flowery language they were nearly incomprehensible but at least a sign that he was trying. 

“Do you want me to bring him anything back?” Cosima is uncharacteristically cautious, not sitting down at Delphine’s bedside but standing instead. They can both feel the tension in the castle, the danger in the air settling down over them like smoke, dark and hurting. 

“Later,” Delphine says, rubbing at her neck where it felt like tension had been building for months. “I’ll think of something in a bit.” 

“Are you alright?” 

Delphine makes a noise that, in other circumstances, could’ve been amused. Cosima looks stricken and Delphine softens immediately, reaching out a hand. Cosima takes it.

“I am sorry. Lady Duncan is...getting to me, I suppose.”

“She’s getting to all of us.”

“Especially the King.”

There is really nothing to say to that. They stand in silence instead, Cosima rubbing Delphine’s hand, Delphine rubbing her stomach. The baby has been moving about lately, kicking at her ribs in the most uncomfortable way, but also occasionally nudging back when pushed; she’d gotten Cosima to try it once, and remembered the awe and delight that’d filled Cosima’s eyes. One of the few beautiful things they had now.

The movements were supposed to mean that the baby was strong and healthy. Delphine prayed and prayed it was true.

“On a happier note, I’ve got something for you.”

“Oh?” 

“Yes.” Cosima’s eyes are bright, sparking mischievously, and like always Cosima manages to draw Delphine out of herself and into the world. “I’ve figured out a way to get you some more books.”

“Have you really?” Delphine can’t help glancing back toward the door. “Are you sure it’s a secure method? I really do think Madame Alexis might do something drastic if she finds me trying to study again.” 

“It is completely undetectable, I promise.” Cosima pulls up a stool at her bedside, still holding Delphine’s hand. “The downside is that it is mostly poetry, and a bit of a limited selection.”

“I don’t care,” Delphine says immediately, and Cosima laughs. “Anything is fine, just something before I lose my mind.” 

“Okay.” Delphine expects Cosima to pull something out from a sleeve, or even her bodice, but instead Cosima closes her eyes, breathing deep. She is about to ask what she’s doing when Cosima opens her mouth. 

_“She let her gold hair scatter in the breeze_  
That twined it in a thousand sweet knots,  
And wavering light, beyond measure, would burn  
In those beautiful eyes, which are now so dim: 

_and it seemed to me her face wore the color_  
of pity. I do not know whether false or true:  
I who had the lure of love in my breast,  
what wonder if I suddenly caught fire? 

_Her way of moving was no mortal thing,_  
but of angelic form and her speech  
rang higher than a mere human voice. 

_A celestial spirit, a living sun_  
was what I saw: and if she is not now,  
the wound’s not healed, although the bow is slack.” 

“Cosima…” 

“Don’t,” Cosima says quickly, a rare slight flush on her cheeks. “It’s not...I didn’t write that. In case that’s what you’re thinking. It’s by Petrarch, an old Italian poet. I just memorized it and...translated it.”

“Cosima,” Delphine repeats, the same awe coloring her tone as when she’d said Cosima’s name before. “You translated and memorized poetry for me.”

“It’s not as if I killed a dragon or anything.”

“No,” Delphine says, reaching out to tug gently at a stray lock of Cosima’s hair. “It is much better.”

Cosima catches Delphine’s hand and wraps it in both of her own. “You want to hear another?”

_“Oui, sil te plait.”_

“Mm,” Cosima giggles, with a bright, toothy grin. _“My gentle lady, I see  
a sweet light that streams from your eyes  
that shows me the way to Heaven_\--Delphine!” 

“What?” Delphine asks innocently.

“If you want to hear the poem, you can’t kiss me in the middle of it!” Cosima scolds, but doesn’t sit up from where Delphine had pulled her in for the kiss either.

_“Désolé,”_ Delphine murmurs, gently wrapping Cosima’s hair around her fingers. “Continue?”

_“that shows me the way that leads to Heaven:  
and as it was accustomed to,  
in there, where I sit alone with Love,  
the heart is shining almost visibly.  
This is the sight that leads me to do good,  
and drives me towards a glorious end,  
only by this distinguished from the crowd:   
no human tongue could ever  
say what those two divine lights  
make me feel_\--mmph.”

Cosima doesn’t object this time, only kisses Delphine back around a smile. “You’re not appreciating the art.”

“I think I am doing exactly that,” Delphine breathes, grinning and kissing the tip of Cosima’s nose. “And it is very, very lovely.”

“Romantic,” Cosima laughs. “Here I thought I was supposed to be seducing you.”

“You do not need to try,” Delphine replies without thinking. “You had me from that first moment.”

“Do you mean that?” There’s a vulnerability Delphine isn’t used to seeing in Cosima’s eyes, a bit of teetering in her voice, and Delphine kisses Cosima gently.

“I do.” 

“I want to believe you.” 

“You can.” Delphine trails her hand down Cosima’s cheek, gently encouraging her to look up. “About these things, you always can.” 

Cosima doesn’t answer, and Delphine doesn’t want to push, so she changes the subject instead, with all the grace of a politician at a suddenly-silent dinner.

“I never knew you were a poet.”

“I only translated them,” Cosima corrects, the mood lightening. 

“Then I didn’t know you knew Italian.”

“Italian, German, ancient Greek, Latin,” Cosima shrugs, as if it wasn’t impressive. “Whatever I could get my hands on, I devoured. Some astronomy, some geography--really, anything that my father left in the library.” 

“Cosima, that is incredible.” 

“It isn’t very useful,” Cosima huffs. “There’s not much for a well-educated woman to do in this world. I almost became a nun.” 

Delphine sits up rod-straight in bed, incredulous. _“Non.”_

“I really did!” Cosima sounds just as horrified and disbelieving as she recounts it, half-laughing. “Just imagine it, it almost sounded perfect. Books to read all day, the opportunity to actually put that Latin to good use…” Her grin turns wicked. “All day with those pretty girls…” 

“Co _si_ ma!” Delphine squeals, torn between swatting at Cosima and covering her own face in embarrassment. “You are _terrible!”_

“You don’t know what goes on behind those doors--” 

“You are saying heretical things!” but Delphine is still laughing, mortified, and she can tell by Cosima’s expression that that was the goal. “You are a _brat.”_

“What are you going to do? Arrest me?”

“I just might,” and they’re both leaning forward and in--

There’s a knock at the door, and whoever is there doesn’t wait before opening the door. Cosima jerks, a panicked move backward, but Delphine grabs Cosima’s elbow, hard, keeping her in that same close position. 

_Trust me,_ she tries to beg with her eyes. She hopes Cosima sees. She hopes Cosima does.

“I do not feel warm to you?” Delphine asks, a bit doubtful and incredulous. Cosima blinks rapidly, confused and frightened, before understanding.

“Not that I can feel, my Lady,” she replies, and Delphine releases her elbow. Cosima rises, hardly panicked, nearly poised. “Allow me to see in your guest, however, and then I shall fetch Madame Alexis.” 

“I can see m-myself in.” 

Everything goes still.

“Mistress Niehaus,” Delphine says, hard and tight and not looking toward the door. “Go fetch Madame Alexis now.” 

“I--” 

_“Go,”_ Delphine says, and Cosima, looking mutinous, curtsies and goes. 

“Madame Alexis? I hope you are n-not unwell.”

“I am sure you do.” Delphine allows herself the indulgence of a moment with her eyes closed, a single deep breath, and then she looks up. “I merely felt a bit feverish. It can be a sign of imminent childbirth,” she lies smoothly, without even glancing away from Rachel’s eye.

Lady Duncan stands like she owns the room, even this room that was built entirely around and for Delphine. She leans on her cane but makes no move to sit; she looks down at Delphine instead, like she’s looking at a live butterfly in a shadow box, beating itself against the glass.

It is not a pleasant metaphor.

“I hope I wasn’t interrupting.” 

“What could you have been interrupting?” 

Rachel smirks at that, her nails drumming smoothly over the head of her cane. “You have a lovely room here. I’m sure you must’ve been well-occupied these last few weeks in here.”

“Yes, I’ve used my time to write many letters to my husband and pray for our child.” 

“Your letters,” Rachel says, rolling the words around in her mouth. “Yes, your letters. He’s told me about them, you know--he’s told me so many things about you.” 

Delphine stares impassively back at Rachel. The baby squirms, and Delphine wills it to calm. 

“And I’ve told him things about you as well. After all, you were my lady-in-waiting for _so_ long--I spent so much more time with you than he ever has. So he believes me when I tell him about your true nature.”

“Is that meant to frighten me?”

Rachel scoffs, light and dignified. “You think I dragged myself up all those stairs just to frighten a pregnant woman? Just what do you think of me, Lady Delphine?” 

“I do not _think,”_ Delphine snaps, rankling at the overly-familiar address. “I know exactly who you are, Lady Rachel. A pathetic imitation of what you once were.”

Rachel’s knuckles go white on her cane.

“You were _something,_ before. You remember that, yes? The Queen. The favorite of them all. All grace, all beauty.” Delphine shakes her head, a slow, deliberate movement. “Do you know how I know all this? Rachel?” 

“D-- _don’t--”_

“Because _I am you.”_ Delphine leans forward, her voice low and angry. She can see Rachel’s eye blinking erratically, hands tightening and loosening on the cane. “I have taken everything you ever stole, you understand? You do not exist here anymore. I am the Queen now,” and Delphine lays her hand on her belly, watches Rachel’s eye twitch immediately over to it. “And I am a better Queen than you could’ve hoped to be.”

“His fff _favorite?”_ Rachel stutters out at last, body betraying her emotion. “The t-things he ssaid to me, how he f-f-feels, how--”

“Do you think you threaten me?” The laugh that comes out of her is colored by nothing but flat disbelief. _“You?_ Look at yourself. Even if you could give him an heir, do you think he would touch you? You know, Rachel,” she adds, faux-conspiratorial, “They say deformity is a sign of evil.”

“Y-you,” Rachel half-sputters, half-snarls. “Are a French _whore.”_

“You,” Delphine replies, deadpan. “Are a barren, pathetic woman.”

The noise Rachel makes is close to inhuman, and she starts to lurch toward Delphine before catching herself, breathing raggedly. 

“Well,” Rachel says finally, breathing already returning to controlled. “We shall see who wins.”

In all this time, Rachel has only come a few steps into the room, and it does not take long for her to reach the doorway, halfway to exiting.

“I am sorry,” Delphine calls, and she hears Rachel hesitate the slightest bit. “That horse should’ve killed you. It would’ve been kinder.” 

The door does not slam, only pauses before it closes with a violent precision and delicacy and it’s then that Delphine lets herself breathe, closing her eyes, her arms going around her stomach. She cannot curl up much in her heavily-pregnant state, but she does as much as she can, hands running restlessly over her stomach.

“Shh,” she whispers around shuddering breaths, not sure who she is addressing. “Shh, shh. It is fine. _C’est bon. Tout est bon. Tout va bien ma coeur.”_

She leans her head back against the pillows, breath still shaking in her chest. She looks up, up, up, and isn’t sure if she’s offering reassurance or sending a prayer.

_“Tout ira bien.”_

_Everything will be fine._

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She goes into labor that afternoon.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Your Majesty, you must drink.”

The lip of a goblet is pressed to her mouth, and Delphine swallows automatically, not tasting whatever is inside. It disappears, replaced by a damp cloth against her forehead and cheeks. She can hear her own breathing, like an animal’s, overly loud and filling her head. It is an awful noise. She wants it to _stop._

“Another one--” and then the breathing is gone, replaced with a horrible moaning that shouldn’t exist, low and guttural--but even that noise is only in the background, because there is _pain, pain, pain,_ in her back, in her stomach, _all_ of her, _devouring_ her--

Delphine collapses against the bed, fingers uncurling from where they’d dug deep into the comforter. There is a low swirling of whispers a few feet away, close enough that if she tried, she could understand them--but she is _tired,_ so exhausted that every part of her aches for sleep, for rest, for a moment, just a moment of peace--

“Drink,” someone says, pressing a goblet to her mouth again. “You need to keep your strength.”

What strength?

She hasn’t got anything left.

“Push, your Majesty, push _now,”_ and Delphine doesn’t know what noise tears its way out of her, doesn’t know how they expect her to push, but she tries, she tries, she tries--

She falls, gasping, her hands reaching out but she doesn’t know for what. They are still talking around her, the midwife, the other midwives assisting her, the attendants, and Delphine doesn’t care about any of them at all, doesn’t care about anything, is so, so tired and is lost.

“I can’t,” she gasps, and she doesn’t know what language it comes out in, doesn’t realize she’s crying until the words come out on a sob. “I can’t, I can’t, please, _please.”_

A hand gently touches her cheek. “My Lady. My Lady.”

She reaches up and grabs the hand, clutches it tightly. The hand grabs back.

“My Lady, open your eyes for me. Look at me.” 

Delphine opens her eyes.

Cosima is there. Cosima is not letting her go.

“There you are,” she says with a gentle smile, brushing away a stray lock of Delphine’s hair. “Hello.”

“Cosima, Cosima please, I cannot--”

“You’re doing so well,” Cosima says smoothly, over Delphine’s half-begging. “Not much longer now.”

“They said that hours ago-- _you said that hours ago,”_ she shouts with a sudden flare of anger toward the women crouched around the base of the bed. “Why isn’t it _over?”_

“Your labor stalled,” Madame Alexis replies, sounding entirely unsympathetic. “The baby isn’t positioned well, so the delivery is harder.”

“Then _reposition him.”_

“It doesn’t work like that, your Majesty. If he was going to move, he would have by now.” She manages to say it as if all the blame is on Delphine’s shoulders, and Delphine chokes on a frustrated noise. Alexis is very lucky there is nothing but a small cross within reach; Delphine would’ve thrown anything less holy at the woman’s head.

“I cannot do this,” she says instead, shaking her head weakly. “I cannot, _c’est impossible,_ I cannot.” 

“Yes, you can,” Cosima says, all easy faith, as if it were that simple. “There’s a baby depending on you. You can do this.”

Another contraction builds, low in her back and moving forward, and Delphine flings her head back and cries out. She squeezes Cosima’s hand on reflex, but Cosima doesn’t pull away, only squeezes back.

“Push,” Cosima says, at the same time as Madame Alexis, and Delphine does, gritting her teeth and clinging to Cosima and breathing in a way that sounds more like whimpering, every part of her tearing, ripping, breaking.

It ends, and she sags, and Cosima is there to catch her.

“I can see the head,” Alexis calls, the other women in the room moving into a focused tension. “The baby is facing up, that’s why the labor’s been so difficult.”

“You hear that?” Cosima reaches behind her for a damp cloth, gently running it over Delphine’s face. “A stargazer. Your baby’s already looking toward the sky.”

Delphine nods, breathing hard, pulling Cosima as close as she can get. 

“I know,” Cosima whispers, running her fingers through Delphine’s hair. “I know. Not much more, I swear.” 

“Please,” Delphine says, not even sure what she is asking for. “Please.”

Cosima takes a deep breath, glancing toward the hyper-focused women gathered around Delphine’s legs and back at Delphine’s face. “All right. All right.” 

It’s entirely improper, crossing all bounds of propriety, but Cosima pulls herself into the bed next to Delphine, pulling Delphine’s upper body tight against her chest. Delphine leans back into her immediately, her head resting on Cosima’s shoulder, hands on Cosima’s arms. 

“I’ve got you,” Cosima murmurs into Delphine’s ear, too low for the other women to hear. “I’m here with you, Delphine, I’ve got you.” 

Another contraction comes and Delphine shrieks, bracing herself against Cosima. She has to be hurting Cosima, but she doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t pause in her sweet whispers into Delphine’s ear. “You’re doing good, Delphine, you are, you’re doing good.”

“The head is nearly out,” and Delphine bears down again, heels digging into the bed, lost in a sea of agony, but Cosima murmuring into her ear, Cosima anchoring her there.

“The head is out, one more now, one more--”

There is a feeling of release, a sudden loss of pressure, and Delphine gasps.

Someone wails.

_Her baby_ wails.

It hits her, all in a moment, that is her baby, her baby crying, _she has a baby,_ and she is laughing because there is nothing else to do with everything that comes swelling up inside of her, the euphoria, the _love,_ oh it is like _flying,_ she can’t even hurt with how much she _loves_ and she’s crying, she’s laughing, and Cosima is laughing too, all that same astonished joy.

“You did it,” Cosima whispers, nearly drowned out by the baby’s cries. She kisses the side of Delphine’s head, quick and stealthy, but so achingly tenderly. “You have a baby.”

It is then Delphine realizes that no one else in the room is speaking.

“Something is wrong,” and the bottom drops out of her world. “Something is wrong, Cosima, what is going on? Why are they so quiet?”

“All right, it’s all right,” Cosima says quickly, lowering Delphine onto the pillows and sliding off the bed. “I’m going to find out, I’ll be back.”

Her baby is still crying, angry squawking cries that are the most beautiful things Delphine has ever heard. At the same time there is whispering, too low for Delphine to make out, but God knows that whispers in this castle have never turned out well for her.

“What is wrong? _Someone tell me what is wrong!”_

And then Cosima is crossing the room, a bundle in her arms.

“It’s a girl,” Cosima says, and Delphine sobs around a laugh, reaching out. "My Lady, you have a little girl." Cosima settles the babe in her arms immediately, and Delphine’s arms fold around her. She fits naturally, perfectly.

_“Salut,”_ Delphine cooes, and the baby quiets. Swaddled tightly in white blankets, she squints blearily up at Delphine, and Delphine gazes back. Her cheeks are chubby, her skin purplish, head misshapen from the birth and covered in a dusting of almost-white blonde hair.

She is the most beautiful thing Delphine’s ever seen. Beyond words, beyond reason, beyond anything she’s known.

“Oh, _salut, ma chérie, ma trésor.”_

“Delphine,” Cosima says gently--so gently, like she’s about to shatter something and is already sorry for it. “There’s something you need to know.”

Carefully, so carefully, Cosima loosens the blanket. 

There’s a pink mark on the baby’s neck, a blotch creeping down onto her chest like a broken butterfly, or a smashed heart. Delphine runs her fingers over the mark, feather-light, and the babe squirms with a small grunting noise. She laughs at that, gently tapping the baby on the nose. Cosima smiles too, but it’s tight and doesn’t reach her eyes.

Cosima tugs on a fold in the blanket, and it falls away.

The baby’s right arm is curled over her chest, fingers flexing a little.

Her left arm ends just below where the elbow should be, neat as if an artist had pinched off the end of a roll of clay.

She can feel Cosima’s eyes on her, waiting to see how she’ll react, but she doesn’t look up.

Delphine runs her hand over her little girl’s head, the wisps of barely-there hair, smiling at the way she turns her face toward the touch. She leans in and kisses her forehead.

Gently, Delphine runs her fingers down her baby’s left arm, and kisses it where it ends.

“Jeanne,” she says, then raises her head and addresses the room. “Her name is Jeanne.”

“It’s a beautiful name,” Cosima says. The rest of the room stays silent.

“One of you will have to go inform the King that he has a child. A healthy daughter, with strong lungs.”

“Your Majesty,” one of the midwifery attendants says, haltingly. “Your Majesty, it--she--”

“Thank you for offering,” Delphine finishes for her, looking the young woman in the eye, daring her to argue. Wisely, she doesn’t, curtsying and exiting.

“We will have the christening in a few days--I want it as soon as possible,” she adds. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

“You must deliver the afterbirth now,” Madame Alexis says, positioning herself between Delphine’s knees. She looks neither at Delphine nor Jeanne.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delphine wakes in a panic, heart in her throat, reaching toward the bassinet next to her.

Someone is standing in front of it.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, my Lady,” Krystal says, and Delphine relaxes, letting her hand fall back against the bed. 

“It is all right, Krystal.” Delphine blinks wearily--the rush after Jeanne’s birth had given her a temporary reprive, but the sheer exhaustion brought on by the last day and a half (and she’d been laboring _a day and a half,_ she’d had no idea) had caught up to her. Krystal has pulled up a stool next to Jeanne’s bassinet, her back angled away from Delphine, and placed a candle on a table nearby--enough light to throw a warm glow around the room, but not enough to bring details to view.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Krystal continues, only half-hearing Delphine. “Only I hadn’t seen you since that first night of your labor, there were so many people around--and she’s _beautiful,_ my Lady, truly she is.” 

“I think so as well.” She props herself up in bed, looking toward her daughter. She’d never thought about this part of it before, the _mothering_ of motherhood--just knew that she would be a mother, someday, and that she’d have to care for the child somehow. She’d never imagined the love, and the different ways it manifested itself--the way she’d been ready to leap out of the bed when those midwives were silent after Jeanne’s birth and tear everyone in the room apart for answers, or now, the way fondness rises painfully in her chest as Jeanne makes a small sleepy noise. 

“They said you named her Jeanne?” 

“From the English _John,_ though French and for a girl,” Delphine explains. “It means ‘the Lord is gracious.’”

“It’s beautiful,” Krystal says softly. Jeanne makes a noise, slowly waking, and Krystal makes a soft _oh,_ adoring and guilty and pained. “I’m sorry, I--I didn’t mean to wake--” 

“You may hold her, if you like.” 

Krystal freezes at that, and Delphine is about to reassure Krystal that she doesn’t have to when she sees Krystal reaching out, slow and hesitant.

“Have you ever--?”

“My family is large, I’ve held cousins,” Krystal says, still hushed. “But they weren’t--well, royal.”

“I do not think even Jeanne is quite aware of her status in the world yet.”

Krystal makes a noise, but it is too strained to be a laugh. It takes her a few moments, but soon Jeanne is wrapped and settled in her arms. Jeanne does not wail, hasn’t since her indignant entrance into the world, only makes a snuffling noise before rooting against Krystal’s chest hungrily. They both laugh a little at that, Krystal offering a finger instead which Jeanne latches onto.

“A lovely, lovely babe,” Krystal croons, while Jeanne sucks, unaware her efforts with Krystal’s finger are futile. 

“Did they tell you about her?” Delphine asks, voice low as she watches her daughter.

“Yes,” Krystal says, still looking down at Jeanne. “The castle is aware, it--it is no secret.”

“Good.” Jeanne pushes away Krystal’s finger with a small mewling noise, grabbing the one next to it in order to try again. “It would have been much worse if we had tried to make it one.”

As if responding to their conversation, Jeanne squirms, her shortened left arm coming up to swat at Krystal’s hand while her other arm waves around a bit. Krystal, to her credit, does not flinch at the sight, only readjusting her grip on Jeanne.

“What did the King say?” 

Krystal’s breath hitches, her shoulders shuddering, and that is all the answer Delphine needs.

“Krystal,” she says, all control, all calm. “Give me Jeanne, please. I need to feed her,” and it’s a weak excuse, there’s a wet nurse sleeping a room away, but she needs Jeanne and Krystal doesn’t ask questions, only passes Jeanne over. Jeanne makes an unhappy grunting until Delphine opens the front of her nightgown and lets her latch, sucking greedily.

She loves this girl so much she can hardly breathe.

Krystal tears her eyes away from Jeanne, looks up at Delphine, and her eyes are red and face wet.

“Tell me.”

“The King is _furious,”_ Krystal gasps, like the breaking of a dam, pressing her shaking hands into the folds of her skirts. “He was saying that the child could not be his, because he comes from good stock. He was meaning,” and she breaks off, breaths quavering. “He was meaning to charge you with adultery.”

_And committing adultery against the King is treason._

“He was meaning to?”

“I was listening outside the door,” Krystal says, blinking furiously. “Well, not exactly outside the door--there are many secret tunnels in this casle, the King never bothered to learn them all, I only know a useful few--but he was shouting at his advisors, accusing half of them of--um-- _visiting_ you, asking the other half how to build a case against you, but then--then Lady Duncan spoke up.”

“Of course she did.”

“She--she said,” Krystal swallows, hands curling and flexing. “She said that deformity in the child was not a sign of infirmity in the father, but of evil in the mother. She said that you had perverted his child and heir.”

Jeanne finishes her meal, dozing lightly against Delphine’s breast. She’s hot, the way babies always run hot, a solid weight in her arms. 

“How am I meant to have perverted her?”

“Black magic.”

Delphine closes her eyes, breathing out long and slow. _Black magic._ Of all the crimes for Lady Duncan to choose from, it was witchcraft. The ridiculousness of it all makes her want to laugh. The daughter against her chest makes her want to cry.

“Do they have evidence?”

“They say Jeanne is evidence,” Krystal whispers, as if saying it too loud will make it more true. “The mark on her neck, the arm. And--” Her breaths are rapid, each jumping over each other. “Lady Duncan said she had witnesses that saw you. With a woman. One of your ladies-in-waiting.”

No. They’d been so _careful_ \--but there are Delphine’s own words, coming back to her. _There is no way to be safe. Not at court. Not from her._

“Did she say who?” Krystal’s breath is hitching, hiccuping, but Delphine can’t wait for her to calm down. “Krystal, _did she tell them who?”_

“No. No, only that she’d known it was one of your ladies. She offered to look at the staff tomorrow, to pick out the offender.” 

“She knows it’s Cosima.” Delphine shakes her head, biting her lip--that old terrible habit from childhood, coming back again. “She would not have made this accusation if she hadn’t already known. It would have been easier to go along with the simple adultery charges. No, she means to--to make a spectacle out of this, to drag Cosima down as well.” 

_To force me to drag Cosima down with me._

“My Lady. Delphine,” Krystal whispers, tears streaming freely. “The penalty for these crimes is _death.”_

“I know.” Delphine looks down at her sleeping daughter, only hours hold. “I know.” 

“What will you do?”

Delphine takes a deep breath, as if she can make the world resolve itself around her, as if slowing her heartrate will slow the way everything is falling to pieces in front of her. “Krystal, in the morning, I am going to dismiss you.”

_“What?”_

“All of you,” Delphine continues, not really hearing Krystal. “I will--I will banish all my ladies-in-waiting from the court. Scatter them all to the winds. Rachel is leading this, but she is not the only one involved--the King is fixated on me alone, she will have to convince him to track down all the ladies-in-waiting, to determine which it was. And if Cosima is smart, which I know she is, she will run.”

“What about you?” Delphine doesn’t answer right away, and Krystal presses. “My Lady, that will help with Cosima’s safety, but _what about you?”_

In her arms, Jeanne is sleeping. Jeanne is dreaming. Delphine looks down at her, and never wants to look away.

“You could flee, my Lady.”

“I cannot abandon her.” Her eyes begin to fill with tears and she looks up, away from Jeanne--if Jeanne wakes, she does not want her to see. “I cannot leave her. If I escape, they may take their anger out on her. I cannot allow that.” Jeanne squirms a little in sleep, and Delphine holds her closer. “She is still his only child. She is still his heir. There is no question of that, especially as there will be no charges of adultery--at least, not with men.” She runs her fingers along Jeanne’s cheek, without waking her. She knows she is crying now, openly, and she cannot stop it. “My little one will be a Queen someday, and I pray to God and Heaven that she will be a better Queen than I was.”

“My Lady,” Krystal starts, then stops, shaking her head. Delphine understands. There is little to say.

“Will you send Cosima in, please?” 

“Of course. I thought you would like to tell her your plan.”

“No.”

“No?” Krystal had stood, going for the door, but now she stops, crossing back to Delphine. “I don’t understand.”

“If I tell Cosima that I am going to die, she will want to stay. She will be in danger. She will try to save me,” and she has to stop, suddenly choking on the thought of Cosima, on the _love_ that fills her up, the love that she is about to lose, “She will try to save me, without realizing that she cannot. That it is for the best.”

“But it _isn’t--”_

“Krystal.” She shakes her head, just slightly. “We both know there is no other way out for me.”

“But it isn’t _fair,”_ Krystal cries--and Delphine has seen Krystal cry many times before, but this is much worse than the high wailing that accompanies her small panics over clothing or getting emotional over stories. Her tears are silent now, her hands pressed to her chest. It is anguish, pure and simple, and it is so painful to watch. 

“Shh,” Delphine murmurs, reaching a hand toward Krystal. “Shh, shh. It will be all right.” 

Krystal falls to her knees suddenly at Delphine’s bedside, taking Delphine’s hand in her own. “My Lady. My Lady, please do not dismiss me.”

“Krystal--” 

“Lady Duncan knows that it was Cosima. She knows I am not Cosima. Lady Duncan wouldn’t--she would want to do it right. She will want to catch Cosima, she will not care for me.”

“You will come under suspicion from the other ministers,” Delphine says, shaking her head disbelievingly. “From Rachel herself. Even if they do not accuse you of being my lover, they could charge you with conspiracy--with _treason--”_

“But they won’t,” Krystal says, shaking her head. “I am the sixth Goderitch daughter, and the dumbest of them all. Everyone knows it. Serving another woman was the best thing they could think of to do with me until they could find a husband who would be content with a simple wife--of course, men like that are rather easy to find, as long as you are beautiful.” 

“Krystal, you are _not_ simple,” Delphine insists, “You have been the most important member of my household. Your information could save Cosima.”

“That is not what anyone else will see,” Krystal argues, and Delphine is forced to see a point to her words. “The men of the councils, educated and royal Lady Duncan--whatever you say, they will _never_ see that. And my family name is still an influential one. Let me stay, my Lady. Someone will need to dress you and do your hair.”

“It will not be safe,” Delphine says, because Krystal needs to know this, needs to understand this. “Just by being with me, just by serving me, you will be in danger. I’ve always been alone. I can do this alone.”

“But you do not have to. Not all of it.”

Delphine looks at Krystal for a long moment. Krystal does not look away. Finally, just the slightest bit, she nods.

Krystal flings her arms around Delphine’s neck.

“The baby--” and Krystal backs down immediately, sitting on the edge of Delphine’s bed instead. Jeanne wakes, but only to make a few offended half-cries easily hushed by Delphine.

“Thank you, my Lady. For letting me stay.”

“I am still a danger,” Delphine says seriously. “If you change your mind, if it becomes too much, you go. You do not need to explain, I understand. And if I change my mind, if I tell you to leave, you must. _Comprends?”_

“I understand.” Krystal pulls out a small handkerchief and offers it to Delphine. “Would you still like me to call in Cosima?” 

“Please.” Krystal rises, taking the kerchief back from Delphine and wiping at her own face. She hesitates when she gets to the door, opening her mouth but saying nothing.

“You think I should tell Cosima what is going on, all of it, and let her decide what to do.”

“Yes, my Lady, I do.”

“I know I should.” She smiles at Krystal in that way she’s gotten so good at, in a way that isn’t happy at all. “Could you fetch her for me, please? And tell her nothing.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hello.” Delphine can hear the broad smile in Cosima’s voice before she even fully enters the room, and she grins back, sitting up a little straighter.

“Hello,” she smiles, and watches Cosima’s face light up, looking at her and Jeanne. “I hope Krystal did not wake you.”

“It is after midnight,” Cosima points out, “But it is fine, completely, just a little surprised is all.”

“I could not sleep,” and that, at least, is not a lie. “I wanted you to meet Jeanne. Properly this time, without all the others in the way.” 

“It couldn’t wait until morning?” Cosima asks, but she’s already sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the bundle in Delphine’s arms. “Won’t I wake her?”

“After the day she has had, I think she will sleep through anything,” Delphine says lightly, brushing a bit of the blanket’s fringe off Jeanne’s face. “Besides, I would like her to meet you too.”

“Well, hello again, Princess Jeanne.” Cosima brushes her knuckles against Jeanne’s cheek, and Jeanne turns and nuzzles at Cosima’s hand in her sleep. Cosima is beaming bright enough to be glowing. “Hey, how do you say ‘princess’ in French?”

_“Princesse.”_

“That’s a bit disappointing,” Cosima says, but barely looks up from Jeanne at all, still running her fingers over Jeanne’s head. “What’s beautiful?”

_“Belle.”_

“Like Italian, then. _Belle princesse. Bella principessa.”_

“Would you like to hold her?”

Cosima looks up, some sort of surprise and hope in her face. “Can I?” 

“Of course,” Delphine says, chuckling a little at Cosima’s hesitation. “She is only a baby, Cosima, without even teeth yet. She cannot hurt you.”

“What if I hurt her?”

“You won’t,” Delphine promises. “I know you won’t. Come here, hold your arms like this,” she coaches gently, nudging Jeanne over into Cosima’s arms. “There you go.”

“She’s so small.” Jeanne yawns widely, making both of them laugh. “Hello there. Hello.”

Jeanne scrunches up her face, looking up at Cosima suspiciously. Delphine is ready for crying, but Jeanne only makes a small snuffling noise before settling in more deeply. Cosima couldn’t look more delighted, Jeanne held close to her heart. 

Cosima looks up with an embarrassed huff. “What is it?”

“You’re beautiful.” 

“Stop,” Cosima says, ducking her head. A bit of her hair falls forward and onto Jeanne. The startled noise Jeanne makes has Cosima almost bent double with laughter, rocking Jeanne back and forth. 

It’s beautiful, so beautiful, and Delphine feels horrible for even letting herself look at it. Cosima is shining, her dark hair turned copper and amber in the spots where the candlelight hits it, falling free down her shoulders and back. Her expression is shining too, kindness and warmth pouring from her and spilling all around her like rays from the sun, and Jeanne all wrapped up in it. She’s worked both her arms free from her blanket, her left arm reaching up, her right hand wrapped around Cosima’s little finger. Delphine watches Cosima lean in and kiss the tiny hand, then press a tender kiss to Jeanne’s forehead. 

It is so beautiful Delphine feels as though she might shatter.

It is everything Delphine has ever wanted in life, within arm’s reach.

It is never, ever going to happen again, and Delphine is the only one in the room who knows it.

“What’s wrong?” Delphine blinks, confused, and stares at Cosima. “Delphine, you’re staring.”

“Oh, I…” Delphine smiles, bright and brittle, and hopes Cosima can’t tell. “I’m sorry. It has been a long day.”

“Oh, of course,” Cosima says, shaking her head. “I’m an idiot, of course--I’ll go, let the two of you get some rest--”

“No,” Delphine says, maybe too quickly. “No, Cosima, I only--will you stay? For just a little longer?”

“Of course.” Cosima smiles, Jeanne coos, and Delphine breaks, just a little. “As long as you need.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeanne is dozing peacefully with a belly full of milk when Krystal leads in Delphine’s other ladies-in-waiting, Cosima in the middle of the group. Delphine is still bedbound, but sits with her back straight and posture perfect, hair neatly plaited and in a fresh shift. She regards them all in that way her mother had drilled into her, as if she was watching them from a very high spot. As if she has a cold, calculated fury lurking somewhere within her. As if she could have their lives thrown aside in a moment.

She hopes she is saving their lives.

“Mistress Goderitch, wait outside.” 

The door closes softly, and Delphine gives them all a moment of confused staring at each other before she speaks.

“It has come to my attention,” she begins, enunciation perfect, no hint of a French accent, “That one of you has committed slander against me.”

There is no outbreak of confused whispers. There is too much shock in the air for that.

“Last night, the night of the birth of _your princess,_ one of you was spreading rumors so _vile,_ so _reprehensible,_ that I dare not repeat them. And these rumors found their way to my King. I trust I do not need to explain how serious this is.”

“My Lady--” 

_“I did not give permission to speak.”_ Delphine takes one deep breath, two. She forces herself to look around the room--to have her eyes pass over Cosima’s the same way they had passed over every other’s. “Clearly, I cannot trust any of you.” 

She sees Cosima flinch out of the corner of her eye. The other ladies are shifting, looking at each other, shocked and hurt. The only woman Delphine truly wants to look at is Cosima, and she is the one woman she does not allow herself to look toward. 

“These lies that have been spread are treasonous.” The word has weight, and she lets it settle for a moment. “But I like to believe that most of you have served me well, and have only been caught up in this. And I am a merciful Queen. Therefore,” and the facade cracks for half a moment, half a moment too long, and she steals a deep breath. “Therefore none of you will be arrested or killed. Instead, you are all dismissed from your positions and banished from court, effective immediately. After noon today, if anyone here is found within ten miles of court--” She looks up, looks at them all, lets her eyes slide impassively over Cosima “--she will be killed.”

“My _Lady,”_ someone--not Cosima, Mistress Hendrix maybe?--cries, betrayed and anguished.

“This is not a matter open to discussion. I suggest you all pack your things; you have five and a half hours.”

Delphine turns her head away, a clear dismissal--and a few moments later hears the shuffle of footsteps and rustle of skirts as the women file away, no doubt confused, no doubt hurt. The door closes with a slam, most likely courtesy of Mistress Obinger.

“Delphine.” 

Of course.

“You were dismissed, Mistress Niehaus,” Delphine says without turning. “And you have a journey to make.”

“Delphine, _look at me.”_

Despite her better judgement, she does. There is raw hurt and confusion in Cosima’s eyes, but no tears. Not yet.

“What was that about? What is going on?”

“I believe I was quite clear.” 

“Rumors? Treason? I haven’t heard of any of this--are you in trouble?” 

_“Mistress Niehaus,”_ Delphine repeats with painful emphasis. “This is none of your concern. You have been dismissed from your position. If you are found at court by the end of the day, you will be arrested.”

There it is. Betrayal welling up in Cosima’s eyes. Delphine doesn’t let herself look away.

“Delphine, I don’t understand.”

“Do not make me explain a third time what will happen if you do not leave, Mistress Niehaus.”

“You don’t think that I--? Delphine, you know I didn’t spread any rumors. You know I would never do anything to hurt you!” There are tears now, and Delphine has to drop Cosima’s gaze. “I thought you trusted me.”

“If you think a Queen can trust any of her subordinates, Mistress Niehaus, you are far too naive to be at court.”

_“Delphine,”_ and it’s a ragged wound of a word, and it tears Delphine to the heart. “You _know_ me. _I love you,”_ and it’s the way Cosima says it, so sincerely, believing in what she is saying but also believing that somehow it will fix everything, that love will be enough to carry them through this, that true love could change anything at all in this treacherous world. 

And Delphine loves her for it. 

“This is inappropriate,” she whispers, eyes trained to a spot on her bedspread instead of Cosima. 

_“Why are you doing this?”_ and Jeanne wakes with a startled wail, as if she knows what is happening. Cosima is closer but Delphine still reaches the bassinet first, ignoring her aching muscles as she gathers Jeanne into her arms. 

“You’ve woken my daughter,” Delphine says simply, her back to Cosima. “I think it is time for you to leave.”

She hears Cosima take a few steps backward, turning away--and then turning back. 

“Sarah was right about you,” and there is a viciousness in her voice that Delphine has never heard before. “My sister. Sarah. She said I should stay as far away from you as possible. That royals like you would never give a _damn_ about anyone else. That you would use me up and leave me for dead as soon as you got bored. But I didn’t believe her. _I didn’t believe her,”_ Cosima snarls, but Delphine can hear the tears. “I believed in you.”

Delphine turns around, Jeanne pressed to her shoulder. She hopes that Cosima cannot see the way her eyes are wet and shining.

“If you return to court,” she says, shaking her head. “You will be killed.”

The slam of the door makes her very being rattle, and she does not try to hide it, her knees hitting the floor before she realizes her legs have given out. In her ear Jeanne is howling, a long note of pure misery. Delphine collapses forward, head bowed as if in prayer, clutching Jeanne tightly, so tightly.

Jeanne cries.

Delphine cries too.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

When they come to arrest her, she is waiting for them.

She stands before the bed, in rich royal purple, hair freshly washed and beneath a French hood. Krystal is there too, standing in the corner, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. Jeanne sleeps peacefully, unaware, and Delphine is unspeakably grateful for it.

“Men are not permitted to be in these chambers. I am meant to be recovering from birthing the Princess.”

“These are not normal circumstances, your Majesty,” one of the two soldiers in the doorway says, holding out a roll of parchment. “This is a warrant for your arrest.”

“And what are the charges?”

“You are accused of lewd and immoral behavior, treason against the Crown and King, and witchcraft. We have orders to bring you to the Tower awaiting trial.”

“To the Queen’s Quarters?”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“And Princess Jeanne?”

The soldier hesitates, glancing uncertainly toward his comrade before turning back to Delphine. “Our orders do not pertain to the Princess.”

“The King has not left any orders for her?”

“No.”

“Then she will come with me,” Delphine decides firmly, half-daring the soldiers to argue with her. “Mistress Goderitch, if you would please bring Jeanne along with us.” One of the soldiers steps forward, and Delphine raises a hand, shaking her head. “There is no need for that. I am coming willingly.”

The soldiers fall into step on either side of Delphine, hands close to their swords. Delphine does not look at either of them, only looks behind her to be sure Krystal and Jeanne are following.

The castle is silent, though not for lack of people--there are faces at every corner it seems, all staring at her with hungry eyes. The Queen, a traitor. The Queen, a whore. The Queen, a witch.

They round a corner, and the King is there.

He is standing in the center of the hallway, before the great oak doors leading out of the castle, in all his finery. The soldiers freeze, uncertain.Delphine walks forward until she is standing in front of him, only a few paces apart.

He’d like to think he is impassive, a picture of stoicisim in the face of his betrayal, she’s sure. But there is a tightness to his jaw and a stiffness to his hands that give him away.

He has never been as good at hiding his emotions as he’s always fancied himself to be.

“My noble King,” she murmurs, dropping into a curtsy before straightening up and staring directly into his eyes. “Your most loving and faithful Queen is delighted to present to you your daughter, Princess Jeanne.”

He takes a breath, then another, but Delphine sees his gaze dart toward Krystal and the blankets in her arms. Krystal keeps her gaze lowered, demure and respectful, but Jeanne has other ideas, waking and letting out a small cry. Something in the King’s face goes stony, and he looks away from both of them.

“Get her out of here,” he snaps with a violent gesture, and both soldiers grab her arms. Delphine stumbles under the sudden weight, pulled back to standing by one of the soldiers. “Get them both out of here!”

She staggers as the soldiers move suddenly, barely managing to regain her footing as they pull her past the King. Jeanne is still crying, despite Krystal’s best efforts to hush her, and as the soldiers pull her forward, Delphine looks back.

She sees the King in the hallway, watching them. She sees the King, no longer alone.

Lady Rachel Duncan stands next to him, dressed in purple and ermine, half her face shrouded in gauzy black fabric. One of her hands rests on the ivory handle of her cane.

Her other hand reaches out and takes the King’s.

Rachel looks into Delphine’s eyes, and smiles.

The castle doors slam shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.
> 
> The translations Cosima quotes can be found at poetryintranslation.com, Petarch sonnet 90 and 72, respectively.
> 
> Fun fact: The name _Jeanne_ is actually a tribute to two French queens with disabilities! _Jeanne de France, Jeanne de Valois_ (1464-1505) was briefly queen before the marriage was annulled and she formed a monastic order, and was actually canonized in 1950. Her Order still survives today!  
>  The second queen _Jeanne la Baptiste_ (1293-1349) was a capable scholar and ruler, as she ruled France directly during the Hundred Year's War while her husband was off fighting. Some pretty darn cool ladies!
> 
> Honestly, again you guys, I am just blown away. I am so so delighted to share this little story with you, and even more overjoyed you're all enjoying it. Y'all are, completely and totally, the best. Finale+epilogue tomorrow!
> 
> <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: institutionalized homophobia, institutionalized ableism, ableism, death and execution themes.

“It isn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared,” Krystal says brightly, moving through the Queen’s quarters of the Tower. There are only a few rooms, but richly furnished, with scarlet wall hangings and mahogany furniture. The plush bed is where Delphine sits now, trying to soothe the still-fussy Jeanne. “It is nearly as nice as the castle itself.”

“I would not get too comfortable,” Delphine warns. “They will not be keeping me here for long. I do not think the trial will be more than a few days away.”

Krystal visibly deflates, still fingering the rich curtains at the high window. Her smile is back a beat later as she goes to Delphine’s trunk and begins rifling through the dresses. “Then there are only a few days for me to put together your outfit for--it will be a beautiful outfit, my Lady, wait and see, I will make you the most beautiful you’ve ever been.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Krystal hesitates, stroking one of Delphine’s dresses again and again. “It’s all happening so fast,” she whispers, like she hadn’t quite meant to say it. 

“It isn’t,” Delphine says, coated in the bitterness of self-loathing. Krystal looks up, confused, and Delphine does her best to smile. “I was thinking about the same thing the other night. This is not fast at all, Rachel has been planning this since my marriage to the King, if not before. How many of the advisors are in her pocket--Chevalier eats out of her hand and _likes_ it, I am sure.” Her stomach has been aching--understandably, given how new Jeanne is in her arms--and now her head begins to ache as well. “She must have been writing to them all this time, to the King and to all the advisors--she is the one who got the advisors to take all those actions contrary to the King.”

“Contrary to the King?”

“The King thought I was turning his advisors against him. If that was not Rachel’s doing, I will--well. I am certain it was.” Delphine snorts, furious enough to bite down until her lip starts bleeding. “I was so _stupid._ I should’ve seen it long ago.”

That naive idiot girl from so long ago, who thought being Queen would make her untouchable. Who thought she could play this game along with the rest of them. Who’d never imagined having anything to lose. 

If all goes well, she won’t have lost anything important. Cosima safe, far away, betrayed and hurt and angry but _living,_ somewhere Delphine can no longer touch her, can no longer hurt her.

Jeanne, growing up as the heir to the throne--the King might send her to a distant castle, somewhere away from court so he doesn’t have to deal with her but also where Jeanne will not have to deal with court until she is of age and the King is in his grave. She will be better, so much better, than Delphine ever was.

The only thing Delphine stands to lose here is her head.

“They might not find you guilty, my Lady.”

Delphine could laugh at that. She could remind Krystal of the fact that the King is already convinced of her guilt, and his is the only opinion that matters. She could explain again that Rachel’s reach is longer than she’d ever imagined, that even if somehow she wasn’t convicted of these charges, she’d be convicted or killed some other way. She could tell Krystal that she’d never truly expected to make it out of any of this alive.

But Krystal looks so desperately, viciously hopeful, and Delphine is so tired of hurting the ones she loves.

“They might not.”

“That’s the spirit, my Lady,” and Krystal is moving again, sorting through jewels and dresses and chatting about how she’d never realized quite how much the other ladies-in-waiting had done--and then quickly cutting herself off apologetically.

“It is all right,” Delphine reassures her gently. “But speaking of them, I have written Cosima a letter, just in case--if the trial does not go in my favor. I know that she has fled from court, and with no indication of where she left, and you will have no obligation or duty to me after the trial if it ends with my conviction, but if you could try to get it to her--”

Krystal is already standing and reaching out for it. Delphine passes the small slip of parchment over, only a little hesitant to pass over her last connection to Cosima.

“I will get it to her. You have my word.” Krystal tucks the letter securely into a pouch at her side, then pauses. “Nothing for Jeanne?”

“She will have my legacy hanging over her for all her life,” Delphine says, letting Jeanne grasp one of her fingers and feeling so smothered by how much she never wants Jeanne to let go. “I think I have done enough damage.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

The trial had been a farce from the very first moments, when Delphine had walked in and seen Ferdinand Chevalier sitting at the head of the group of peers meant to judge her. They had read out the charges, asked her to plead, and asked the bare minimum of questions.

_Have you ever committed adultery against the King?_

_No, I have not. The King is the only man I have ever been with; Jeanne is of his true issue._

_Have you ever committed treason against the Crown?_

_No, I have not._

_Have you ever thought treasonous thoughts against the King?_

_No, I have not._

_Have you ever attempted to undermine the King’s authority in matters of state?_

_No, I have not._

_How do you explain the accounts of the ministers who say you have approached them and attempted to influence matters of state and decisions?_

_I cannot._

_How do you explain that these ministers claim they have, in fact, made decisions based on your influence?_

_I cannot._

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

_Have you ever committed lewd acts in this castle?_

_No, I have not._

_Have you ever committed such acts as the kissing, caressing, embracing, or otherwise immoral and unnatural touching of another woman?_

_I have never behaved with another woman in a way I felt to be immoral or unnatural._

_How do you explain the witnesses who claim they saw you engaging in these behaviors?_

_I cannot._

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.” 

_Are you a Christian?_

_I have always been._

_Have you ever engaged in black magics?_

_No, I never have._

_Have you ever tempted or have been tempted by the Devil?_

_The Devil tempts us all. I have never sought him out._

_Have you ever had intercourse with the Devil?_

_I have not._

_Have you summoned and suckled familiars, and used them to do your bidding?_

_I have not._

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

_How do you explain the accident that befell Lady Duncan, the former Queen?_

_Excuse me?_

_The accident of two years ago--_

_I know what accident you are referring to, sir, I do not understand it’s relevance here._

_Answer the question._

_As an accident, there is no explanation. I was not present. It is my understanding the horse startled._

_How do you explain the horse startling?_

_Sir, I do not understand._

_In Lady Duncan’s account, her horse startled upon a cat running before it. A cat is a well-known witch’s familiar._

_Cats are also known to run feral through the countryside, sir._

_You deny all involvement, then?_

_Of course._

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

_How do you explain the deformity of your daughter, Princess Jeanne?_

_I cannot._

_You cannot?_

_No sir._

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

_It is considered a mark of evil in the mother to see deformity in the child. You cannot offer an alternate explanation to the court?_

_Forgive me, sir, there is an explanation. An overabundance of virtue._

_I’m sorry?_

_Jeanne, true daughter of the most noble King and my most noble husband, suffers simply from having an overabundance of virtue. Lord God, seeing this, removed her arm so she would not be quite so unfairly advantaged against the rest of the world._

_This is no time or place to be facetious._

_Of course not._

“Guilty.”

_Did you use black magic against the King?_

_No._

_Did you use black magic to influence the court?_

_No._

_Did you use black magic against the King’s issue, the Princess Jeanne, resulting in her deformity?_

_No._

“Guilty.”

“Guilty.”

Delphine has not bowed her head once during the trial, has not let any of them cow her, even as her legs tremble beneath her and her abdomen cramps terribly. But now she seeks out the face of the final minister waiting to pass his judgement, a man she doesn’t even recognize. She looks him directly in the eye, unblinking, waiting.

She wants to know this man who will seal her fate to please his King.

She wants him to know that he is a pawn, the same as her in this game, and he might very well come to the same end.

She wants him to know her, if he is going to kill her.

“Guilty.”

“On the charges of immoral behavior,” Lord Ferdinand Chevalier begins, seeming to Delphine to be enjoying this far too much, “We find Queen Delphine guilty. On the charges of high treason against the King, we find Queen Delphine guilty. On the charges of witchcraft,” and he smirks at Delphine, drawing the moment out. “We find Queen Delphine guilty. Based on the severity of these charges both individually and combined, we sentence her to burning at the stake until dead.”

Chevalier sits back in his chair, self-satisfied. Delphine waits for the despair to set in, for the anguish, but all she feels is exhaustion. There is no surprise here, and she’d never had much hope of anything different.

“Because of the possible influences of black magic on the King at the time of their vows and consummation, the marriage of Delphine Cormier is found to be null and void.” 

People spoke of a ‘final nail in the coffin,’ that last bit of finality and breaking point, but Delphine has been watching them build this coffin around her from the first moment she’d walked into this castle, had even provided them with the wood.

She is so tired, and she is alone.

Chevalier makes a dismissive gesture, and the soldiers pull at her until she jerks her arms free, her back straight and her head high, and hatred in her eyes as she looks at the faces staring back at her.

“You are all pathetic men.”

The soldiers reach for her again and she turns before they can grab her, walking herself out of the courtroom.

There are crowds of nobles outside, able to pretend they are less bloodthirsty than the crowds outside because they are wearing rich clothes and whispering amongst themselves instead of shouting and jeering, but they all have the same looks in their eyes.

Delphine doesn’t look at any of them.

Until there’s a rush of footsteps, and a warm pair of arms wraps around Delphine’s neck and pulls her close.

“I’ll care for Jeanne,” Krystal whispers into Delphine’s ear in a rush. “I’ll stay with her, I’ll keep her safe.” 

“Tell her I love her,” Delphine whispers back, holding Krystal back fiercely. 

“I will. She knows.” The soldiers are grabbing at Krystal--gently, she at least is still a noble--but Krystal hangs on resolutely. “They won’t let me stay with you--I’ll get your letter to Cosima, Delphine--”

The soldiers manage to pull Krystal off at last and she stumbles back a few steps, glaring indignantly. She looks at the soldiers, at the nobles staring openly and disapprovingly at her and at Delphine with fear and hate, and readjusts her skirts with an air of great dignity before looking back up at Delphine.

Krystal doesn’t hesitate before dropping into a deep curtsy at Delphine’s feet.

“My Lady Queen,” she says, voice trembling. “It has been an honor and a privilege to serve you.”

“Mistress Goderitch,” and Delphine had told herself she wasn’t going to show any emotion for these nobles, that she wasn’t going to grant them the satisfaction, but this is for Krystal and so she doesn’t try to smother the wetness in her eyes. “The honor was mine.”

The soldiers move her forward and Krystal is forced back into the crowds, out of Delphine’s sight, and she’s surrounded again by people who are only too happy to see her fall.

The soldiers shove her, and she moves forward.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Lady Cormier, you look unwell.”

Delphine does not raise her head from where it rests against the stone wall, or uncurl her legs from where they are tucked up against her chest. She knows she looks awful--she’s been shivering nearly all of the three days it’s been since the mockery of a trial, the pain in her stomach growing until she could no longer pretend it was only an emotional response to everything happening around her. 

Something is very wrong.

Though the cell Rachel has had her moved to--and there is no point in pretending, whatever excuses they had about how it was inappropriate for her to remain in the Queen’s quarters when she was no longer queen, it is obviously Rachel--cannot be helping. It is nothing but a stone room at the top of the Tower, bare but for a desk and cot, and a high window with a view onto the courtyard. They’ve begun to prepare her pyre there.

“I hope you’re not planning on dying before your execution date,” Rachel continues, her voice carrying through the wooden door. There’s a small, barred window in the door; if Delphine raised her head, she could see Rachel smirking through it.

She does not.

“Very mature, Lady Cormier,” Rachel sighs. “I thought I’d trained my ladies-in-waiting better than that.”

“Why are you here, Lady Duncan?”

“I can’t visit an old friend who is scheduled to die so very soon?” Delphine looks over at that, hating that condescending tilt of Rachel’s head, that little smile on her face that means she can see that hatred and is _amused_ by it.

“Is that what we were? Friends?”

“Well, what would you call it?”

Delphine scoffs and turns her head away, staring back toward the window. Rachel tsks, like a governess, her nails tapping loud and audible against her cane. 

“I wanted to let you know search for Cosima is ongoing. There aren’t many hiding spots for her and her kin left. It would have been much better for the both of you if she’d just stayed.”

_They haven’t found Cosima._ Delphine’s eyes slide shut in relief. 

“Truly, Delphine, I did expect better from you. The Niehaus family, oh, they’ve never been anything more than a cobbled-together clan of strays, but your Mother had such high hopes and praises for you--and where do I find you? In bed with a woman. Not only a whore, but a sodomite.”

Delphine tilts her head back and _laughs,_ actually laughs, enough that she throws a hand over her mouth to muffle the semi-hysterical sound. She does not bother opening her eyes.

“Yes?” Rachel’s voice is arched, annoyed, and Delphine muffles another giggle.

“You come here to gloat over me and you choose to focus on one of the only things I will never regret,” Delphine explains, shaking her head slowly. “You think you can shame me for loving Cosima? I am _proud_ to love her. Quote your laws, your statutes, _I do not care._ I have so many things to be ashamed of, and you choose to condemn me for love.” She opens her eyes languidly, savoring the incensed look in Rachel’s eye. “Is it because that was my only offense you could not understand, Rachel?”

Rachel blinks once, twice, slow and deliberate. “Your imminent demise has made you bold, I see.”

“You cannot hurt me now.”

“The King wanted to commute your sentence to beheading. I convinced him to leave it at the traditional sentence for traitors and witches. How do you imagine it feels, Lady Cormier? Burning, watching your own flesh melt away.”

“Ah, you made sure I would burn.” Delphine isn’t sure if it’s fever or exhaustion making her so undignified and brash, or simply the knowledge that nothing can affect her now, with her sentence essentially carved in stone. “Then you have played all your cards. You have no leverage left.”

“Perhaps.” Rachel begins to turn away, and Delphine closes her eyes again, head thudding gently against the stone wall. “Your daughter.”

Delphine’s stomach suddenly clenches, freezing.

“What?”

_“Jeanne_ \--well, I’ve never cared much for infants, but she is really quite well behaved. I do have to commend you.”

Delphine sits up, ignoring how her abdomen screams at the movement. “Don’t you dare speak about her.”

“The King wanted to send her to some distant castle, let governesses and maids tend to her--perhaps send her quietly off to a convent once a proper heir is birthed,” Rachel says, ignoring Delphine completely and deliberately. “But one of the ministers suggested a more foolproof way to ensure we do not end up with a nasty battle between half-siblings to the throne. How much simpler it would be if poor, malformed Jeanne simply...fell ill. Never made it to that distant castle. Just...disappeared into the ether.”

“No.” Delphine is standing suddenly, striding across the cell. She wants to take Rachel’s smug face into both of her hands; she wants to use her nails to remove that smile. “Jeanne is the King’s daughter, his only child, he _would not--”_

“Oh, he was horrified, of course,” Rachel continues blithely. “But he was considering it, you could see it. And the other ministers as well.” 

_“How dare you?”_ The cry leaves her throat raw and aching, but it does not compare to the horror and fury that Delphine is suddenly burning with, sheer disbelief and terror. “You cannot touch her-- _you cannot touch my daughter!”_

“Oh, nothing has been decided. Perhaps I will step in and convince the King to be merciful. She is his child,” Rachel muses. “And, well, I have always wanted a daughter of my very own.”

Delphine flings herself at the door, punches the wood hard enough her hand begins to bleed--and Rachel presses her face against the barred window, right up next to Delphine’s. She can see some of the scar tissue, pink and shining, creeping out from the cloth Rachel uses to hide it; can just make out the collapsed cheekbone on that ruined side of her face.

“I want you to die knowing the truth. Cosima and your daughter are lost. Did you think you could protect them? Truly believe that? You are the one who condemned them to this. Cosima will be found, and she will suffer before she dies. Jeanne is the property of myself and the King, the same way you always were. None of your efforts were ever going to amount to anything. There is no saving your girls. You’ve made it _so much worse_ for them, Delphine.”

Delphine swallows, trembling. “Let me see Jeanne.”

“Oh, I hardly think that would be appropriate.”

“Let me see her,” Delphine repeats, the words slow to stop them from shaking. “Let me say goodbye to my daughter.”

“I thought you prefered your goodbyes formal and distant. Is that not what you did to your Cosima?”

“Do _not,”_ and her breaths are ragged gulps; she grits her teeth and tries again. “Do not dare to pretend you understand anything at all.”

“You must understand the position I am in,” and Delphine can see the words oozing as they make their way from Rachel’s mouth, all poison honey. “I am following the law. None of this is personal.”

“You plan to kill the woman I love,” Delphine gasps, “You plan to kill me without letting me see my child, and you say it is not _personal?”_

“I can feel your fever through this door, Lady Cormier, my goodness,” Rachel says instead, stepping away. “I will arrange to have your execution moved up to the morning. We wouldn’t want you escaping justice by passing earlier.”

Without a backward glance, Rachel walks away. Her footsteps echo for a long, long time down the stone hallways of the Tower.

Delphine _screams,_ flinging herself into the door with enough force to make her bones shake. She backs away, hands shaking, and approaches it more slowly, running her fingers along the hinges, along every seam where the door meets stone. A nail cracks when she wedges it between the doorframe and the wall. She grabs at the bars of the door window instead, shaking them, throwing all her weight against them. 

She runs to the window on the opposite wall, climbing onto its narrow ledge and slamming her hand against the glass, again and again. There’s no give to the glass, no join where it fits into the wall wide enough for her to get her fingers into, not for lack of trying. She looks down--there, her own pyre, ten stories down.

She flings herself at the door again, calling and pounding--she can’t tell what she’s saying, pleas or curses or both--but it doesn’t move, does not even splinter as she claws at it, as she leaves smears of red behind on the wood.

She hits the door, again and again, crying out--and then she only cries, her legs giving out beneath her, hands still pressed to the wood as if somehow, some way, she could get it open.

Her daughter.

Her love.

She’d thought--

She’d _hoped--_

_Stupid girl,_ she thinks, even as she shatters on the prison floor, hands grasping at air and searching for Cosima, Jeanne, _anyone--_

_Stupid, stupid girl._

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Delphine opens her eyes and knows she is dreaming.

She knows this because her mother is there.

Her mother, dressed in all her finery as she had been that day the King had stopped at their castle, with so many jewels you’d think she’d rattle in the wind, sits on the small wooden prison cot, holding a goblet of something steaming.

Delphine picks herself off the floor, glancing behind her at the locked door, the dark stone walls, and back at her pristine, long-dead mother.

“You were having trouble sleeping.” The sound of her native French--unaccented, formal, exactly what she had grown up with--throws her. The fact that it is exactly her mother’s voice only makes it worse. “So I made you some mulled wine.”

“But it isn’t Christmas,” Delphine replies, the French feeling good on her tongue after so long.

“It’s a special occasion nonetheless.” Delphine stares and her mother sighs in a way that makes Delphine feel six years old again. “Thank me, sit down, and drink it. I raised you better than this girl.”

Delphine pulls out the hard chair next to the desk and sits across from the bed. “I’m sorry, Mother. Thank you.”

Her mother’s hands are cold, but the goblet is warm and the wine is sweet, spiced, and hot. She can taste cloves and cinnamon and if she closes her eyes she is small again, snow is falling outside the window, she can see her home, her brother, her family.

She looks up.

“Why are you here, Mother? I didn’t think I’d see you until tomorrow. Until after.”

“I’ve told you, Delphine, if you’re going to lie, lie well.” Delphine ducks her head, running her finger along the rim of the goblet. “You weren’t expecting to see anyone at all, and if you were, you wouldn’t have chosen me.”

“Sorry, Mother.” 

“And don’t apologize constantly. It’s a sign of weakness, I’ve told you this.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“And I told you this was how you’d end up.” Her mother breaths out, low and slow. If she’d been a less dignified woman, it might’ve been anything from a scolding to tears. “A weak heart, Delphine. All gentleness and kindness, seeping out of you. I told you they were going to eat you alive.”

“Mother,” Delphine says, pressing both hands around the goblet, trying to pull warmth from it. “They’ve moved my execution up to the morning.”

“Do you know, when they put you into my arms that first time, I had no idea what to do with you.” Her mother settles her hands in her lap, laying one finger over her wedding band. “All my life, I’d known what I was going to do--marry well, have sons, and do my best not to die in the process. And then they gave me you. This little girl, and my first thought was that I wished you weren’t so beautiful.”

“Mother--”

“A beautiful girl who dirtied her skirts to bring in flowers and curtsied clumsily but with a bright smile, and tried to help the maids with chores, and what on Earth was I meant to do with that?”

It’s more words than her mother had ever said to her in one sitting while alive, and nothing Delphine knows how to respond to, so she stays silent. Her mother stands and crosses to look out the window, something crossing her face that is almost a flinch when she sees the pyre outside.

“It came so easy to your father. I hated him for that,” and Delphine flinches at that. “Come on, girl, don’t pretend it shocks you. You’ve seen how these marriages can be, you know better than most.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Everything came easy to that man.” Delphine looks into her wine, and her mother looks back out the window. “His titles, his lands, his love for you. As easy as breathing to him, he never understood that it couldn’t be easy for others. _Just hold her,_ he’d say. _Just play with her, just be with her. You’re her mother._ As if that in itself would make it all simple.” Her mother lowers her head from her portrait-perfect posture, shaking her head bitterly. Delphine takes a drink of wine. “Everything was simple to him. He was a simple man. So I let him manage you, and then he abandoned us.”

“He died,” Delphine blurts, a bit of wine slopping onto her hand. 

“He went on a hunting trip and fell from his horse,” her mother corrects sharply. “A simple end for a simple man. And I was alone with two children, a girl too brilliant and soft, a boy too reckless and charming. And then I just had the girl.”

Her mother turns her back, and when she turns back there’s a golden chalice in her hands. She sits across from Delphine again and takes a long drink. Delphine does the same; her wine has gone cold and sticky. 

“I did my best with you, Delphine. I did try. I kept you busy, gave you as much as we had, made you the best you could’ve been. Languages, arts, musics, everything to make you a perfect bride. Politics and lying and ruthlessness, everything to make you a woman who could survive this world. The same as I’d been. And you were.” She looks at Delphine, really _looks._ “And then you weren’t.”

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, “I’m sorry, Mother, I’m sorry--I fell in love.” 

“With that girl.” 

“Cosima.” She knows she is dreaming, so it shouldn’t hurt so much to say the name, but it does. “Her name is Cosima Niehaus. I didn’t mean to love her, Mother, I swear to you--but I did, I _do,_ no matter how I tried not to, I love her _so,”_ and she blinks, and a tear falls into her wine. “I sent her away because I thought I could keep her safe and away from all this. I hurt her, Mother, I hurt her terribly.”

“We have all hurt the ones we care about in the name of love, girl.” 

“I have a daughter,” she says, and tears are streaming so freely down her face, but her mother isn’t scolding her. “I have a daughter, Mother.” 

“I know. I saw.” 

“Her name is Jeanne, and I loved her when they put her in my arms, I love her easy as breathing but I do not know what to do with that, I do not know what to _do,_ and I only wish I had her here. I feel I need them both here.”

“I know.”

“I’ve lost everything,” and her wine is gone, she has nothing to hold onto. “Mother, I’ve lost _everything.”_

“I know.” Delphine blinks and her mother is standing, directly before her. “You were the most successful a woman could be, you usurped a Queen and became a Queen, with your entire life set as long as you could keep your head down and keep yourself molded into something the King would enjoy. And then you listened to your heart. When every logical thing told you _no,_ your heart told you _yes_ and you listened. You risked everything you’d risked your life to get for this girl. You were true and honest, and kind, and you _loved._

“Now Cosima is in peril and your daughter is lost to you and you will die because of the decisions you made. The mistakes you made. All of them out of love. All of them the very best choices you could’ve made at the time to help the ones you love. You failed, but you tried.” 

Her mother kneels, and the shock is enough to startle Delphine out of her tears. Her mother kneels to Kings and to God and for nothing else. 

But she is kneeling now.

“I am not proud of you,” she says. “But coming from the woman I’ve become, perhaps that is a good thing.”

“Mother,” she says, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, my girl, I would tell you to throw out your ridiculous plan to declare your undying love for your Cosima as your last words, you know they will slander you enough without it. But then again, you always were a romantic child, I know you will anyway. And I would say remember that the pain will have to end, one way or another.” Delphine looks toward the window, toward the pyre, and her mother does the same. “Don’t think of it as dying. Think of it as escaping the flames.”

“Mother,” and Delphine is small, so small. “Mother, I’m afraid.”

“Your father would say to have faith, that love conquers all.” Her mother scoffs. “I would say that is a ridiculous belief for simple children. But you are your father’s daughter as well as mine. Perhaps more his than mine, in the end.”

“And, Delphine, my girl?” Her mother takes a deep breath, blinks, and her eyes are shining. “I tried so hard to love you, girl. I wanted to so very much.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A sharp bang on the cell door accompanies the sunrise.

“I’m here t’ dress Lady Cormier for her execution.” 

Delphine sits up from where she’d collapsed the night before, her muscles protesting loudly. Her hands are still covered in dried blood, dull pain like a weight radiating out from her stomach. “I thought I’d have more time.” 

“Is this the right cell?”

“Yes,” Delphine calls, picking herself off the ground and dusting ineffectively at her stained skirts. “But I thought...it is barely dawn, I thought it would be later.” _Rachel wanting a grand spectacle, the courtyard and streets overflowing, shouting, jeering, and the King and Rachel watching as they tie her to the stake, touch the torches to the kindling--_

“There’s been a change of plans. Stand back.” There’s the jingling of keys and Delphine stumbles back a few steps, just enough to avoid the opening door.

The woman enters with her head down, a bundle of clothes in her arms and turns quickly to shut the door behind her. “We don’t have a lot of time, so we need to move quickly, alright?”

She lifts her head, and Delphine chokes.

_“Cosima?”_ and she’s crossing the room before she can think, placing her ruined hands on either side of Cosima’s face and kissing her, desperately, deeply. _“Cosima.”_

“Uh, no.” It takes a second for the words to sink in and when they do Delphine pulls away like she’s been burned, pressing her hand to her mouth. The woman looks just like Cosima--but she doesn’t, if she looks closely. She stands in a different way, her hair curls differently, and her awkward grimace is very different from Cosima’s. 

Delphine is mortified.

“Oh, God,” she whispers, shaking her head, “Oh, my God, I--”

“Nice to meet you too,” the woman quips. “Now take your clothes off.”

_“Excuse_ me?”

“Seriously,” and the smirk is gone now, replaced with a fierce determination. “Listen, Delphine, we really need to go. My sister is distracting the guards--she’s good at that--but that can only last so long, yeah? This is a servant’s uniform, same as mine--” and the woman shoves the bundle into Delphine’s hands. “Get it on, and keep your head down. We’re getting you out of here.”

“Why?” Queens have no modesty left--when it takes entire teams of women to get you dressed and undressed in the mornings, you lose all sense of embarrassment quite quickly--but Delphine still feels strange, stripping for this woman who is not quite Cosima. “Why are you doing this?”

“Honestly, if it was just up to me, I wouldn’t be out here risking my neck. I hate royals,” she says bluntly. “But my sister says you saved her life, and that she loves you. I can’t really just let you burn after that.”

_My sister._ Delphine’s throbbing fingers slip on the lacings of her dress, and the woman steps in to quickly undo them. “Are you Sarah or Helena?”

“Sarah.” She laughs at some private joke that Delphine doesn’t understand. “Believe me, nobody ever mistakes me for Helena.” Her hand grazes over Delphine’s neck and she frowns, pressing the back of her hand to Delphine’s head. _“Shite,_ don’t tell me you’re sick.” She doesn’t wait for Delphine to respond, doing up the last few stays on her dress and quickly tucking Delphine’s curls up under a simple white hood. “Okay, let’s go.” 

“Wait--” Delphine pulls back as Sarah goes for the door, ignoring Sarah’s annoyed look. “My daughter--”

Sarah’s face softens, just a fraction--but it is there, not pity but understanding, and she reaches out her hand. “I know. I know, okay? But we have to go, I can’t explain it now. But Cosima sent us, we’re here for her, and that means we’re here for you.”

“Sister!” and the voice sounds like Sarah’s, but accented, and there’s the sound of someone grunting and hitting the ground. The door opens, and it’s Sarah’s face poking through the doorway, her hair much frizzer and looser and a tear up her skirts. “We go. We go _now.”_

Still, Delphine does not move. Does not let herself hope. “Cosima is safe?” 

“Yes,” Sarah says, and she does not look away as she says it. “Yes, she’s safe.” 

“Come,” the other woman--Helena, it must be--says, holding out her hand in a beckoning that mirrors her sister’s. “We bring you to her now.” 

Delphine doesn’t know these women, doesn’t know their plans, and even if it isn’t a trap there are too many ways this could go wrong. This could all go wrong.

_Have faith, love conquers all. A ridiculous belief._

And then Cosima’s voice, hurt and angry and above all, honest. _I believed in you._

She can believe in return.

Delphine takes their hands, and moves forward.

“Head down,” Sarah hisses in her ear, Helena pressed tight to Delphine’s other side. “Curtsy when we do. Don’t speak. Don’t rush, just move quickly,” and they round a corner, Sarah suddenly dipping her head. Delphine follows, a little clumsy and late, and keeps her eyes trained to her feet.

“Is Lady Cormier ready?”

“Yes, my Lord,” and Sarah’s voice is nothing like it was in the cell, instead all sweetness and deference. “We left her dressed and waiting.”

“You did not stay with her?”

“Forgive us, your Lordship,” and there’s a quavering in Sarah’s voice, an uncertainty. “But we did not wish to be alone with her longer than we absolutely had to. Not _that_ woman,” and there’s horror and terror in the words. “Please understand, my Lord.” 

“I do.” The man in front of them steps aside, gesturing for them to move on. “Were I in your shoes, ladies, I would feel the same. Thank you for your duty.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” Sarah says with another curtsy, Delphine and Helena echoing, and then they are moving on, the man’s footsteps fading behind them. “God, I hate him. The man is the definition of wandering hands.”

“He smells like eggs,” Helena adds, hot breath in Delphine’s ear. “Bad eggs.”

“Too right.” They round another corner, and hurry Delphine down a set of narrow, winding steps. “We get you out of here, down to the gates, my brother’s waiting with horses. We’ve got a house some twelve miles from the castle, a little shitty excuse for an inn--they probably won’t think to look for you there.”

“It cannot be that simple,” Delphine whispers back, her breath starting to come in uneven pants as she rushes to keep up with the twins. It had been so easy to ignore any signs of illness when she was dying anyway, but when suddenly she’s trying to live it all comes rushing in, her throbbing head, the clenching and burning low in her belly, the way her muscles scream. 

“Oh, it isn’t,” Sarah says, her voice cutting straight through the haze. “We are in such deep shite, honestly. Always knew Cos and her starry eyes would get us all into trouble someday. She says you’re worth it, though,” Sarah adds, glancing sideways at Delphine. “Swears it up and down.”

“I am not,” Delphine breathes back. “Truly, I am not.” 

Sarah does not seem to be listening, only directing them around another bend and set of stairs. “They’re gonna notice you’re gone sooner or later. Keep it moving.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

She doesn’t know how many flights of stairs she’s gone down, but it feels like a hundred when Delphine finally falls.

Helena’s hand whips out, impossibly fast, catching Delphine hard around the arm and pulling her back before she hits the ground, Sarah appearing on her other side and shoving her back onto her feet. 

_“Jesus,”_ she gasps, stopping on the stairs to assess Delphine’s in a way that strikes her as strangely motherly. “You all right?”

“I cannot,” Delphine says, pressing her hand to her stomach. “I cannot, please--”

“Yes you can, come on,” Sarah snaps, slinging Delphine’s arm over her shoulders. “We’ve only got a few stairs left.” 

“Leave me--” 

“Not happening.” 

“If they catch you--” Delphine shakes her head weakly against Sarah’s shoulder. “You must leave me, it is an order.” 

“Not your decision, Lady Queen,” Sarah replies, half carrying Delphine down the next few stairs. “Cosima needs you.” 

Delphine sucks in a low deep breath, then another, and steps forward.

“That’s it,” Sarah says, and there’s Helena’s hand on her back, pushing her along. “Come on then, that’s it.”

It feels an eternity later when she steps off the stairs, pushed through the doors, and there is _sunlight,_ warm on the back of her neck, and she cannot help herself, she tilts her head up to chase it.

“So this is Delphine?” A man steps forward, all confidence and swagger as he shakes his black mop of hair out of his eyes and squints at her. “Well. I certainly understand it _now.”_

“Shove off, Felix, we haven’t got time for this,” Sarah snaps back, holding out her hand. He nods, leading two horses over and passing her the reins to one of them. 

“Too right, they’ve not yet announced she’s missing but the Tower is being swarmed with soldiers. I give it five minutes till they close the gates.” 

Sarah swings herself onto the horse with ease, ripping her skirts up the seams to sit comfortably. Felix guides the other horse over to Delphine, who stares blankly. 

“I gave birth less than two weeks ago.” 

“Oh, alright then, stay and burn, it’s your choice,” Felix replies, with a quite impressive eye roll. “Or, if you’d rather not, I’ll give you a boost.”

With little other choice, she puts her foot in Felix’s hand and climbs onto the horse, nearly sliding off the other side as soon as she sits. A pair of arms clasps around her from behind, holding her tightly. 

“Shh,” Helena says, reaching around Delphine for the reins. “Hold with the legs. She does not want you to fall either.”

“I--” Delphine begins, but Helena clicks her tongue and the horse is walking, then running, bumping up and down beneath her and it’s all Delphine can do to stay on and conscious, much less carry on a conversation. It _hurts,_ she _hurts,_ and she finds herself leaning into Helena, the other woman solid and warm behind her.

Helena says something in another language, sharp, and then the horse is moving faster, hooves thundering, and making turns that threaten to jerk Delphine from her seat. She cannot quite open her eyes but she grabs onto Helena anyway. 

“What is wrong,” she asks, the wind whipping her words away. “Did we make it out the gates? Are we..”

“Shh.” Helena pats her head, clumsy as if she’d seen others do it but isn’t quite sure how to do it herself. A small part of Delphine’s brain registers that Helena should probably not be guiding the horse one-handed at this speed. “So much worries about others. Let us carry it for a little, yes? Sleep now, Cosima’s Delphine.”

And Delphine does.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is dark when Delphine opens her eyes next, the stars so bright and numerous above her. Someone is lifting her, setting her on her feet, and she doesn’t recognize them, doesn’t know where she is, doesn’t--

“Easy, love,” and it isn’t Sarah but her voice is almost the same, only older. Somewhere else, Helena and Felix are talking about the horses, leading them away. “Can you stand?”

“Where--”

“Our safe house,” and that’s Sarah, on her other side, taking her other arm. “It’s a shitehole, but that’s sort of the point. Come on. There’s someone looking forward to seeing you.”

It feels like a dream, all yellow candlelight and flickering shadows, her body feeling so far away. People are talking, all around her, but she can’t hear them, not really.

But she can hear someone singing.

_“Alas, my love, you do me wrong, to cast me off discourteously,_  
For I have loved you so long, delighting in your company.  
Oh, Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight  
Greensleeves was my heart of gold, and who but my lady Greensleeves?” 

Sarah lets go, but Delphine doesn’t fall. There’s a door in front of her, and she pushes it open.

_“I have been ready at your hand to grant whatever you would crave,”_ the crooning continues. There’s a fire roaring, warm and steady, just behind the singer. She’s facing away from Delphine, rocking gently where she stands. Delphine cannot see much, but she can see dark hair, a waterfall of it, curling and falling free. _“I have both waged life and land, your love and good will for to have.”_

And _oh,_ how she knows that voice.

_“Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight  
Greensleeves was--”_

“My heart of gold,” Delphine says, like a prayer, and the other woman turns.

Cosima turns.

She smiles, like the sunrise, like hope, like impossible things made true, opens her mouth to speak and all that comes out is a sob. She blinks, and there are tears streaming down her face.

“Look, Jeanne,” Cosima says, her voice trembling, and shifts the bundle in her arms. “It’s your mom.”

_“Ma coeur,”_ Delphine breathes, _“ma cherie,”_ and then she is moving forward, she is running, and Cosima meets her halfway, falling to their knees together on the floor. Jeanne blinks, startled, and then she cries out, reaching out her arm.

Reaching for Delphine.

“Oh, _ma coeur, ma coeur,”_ Delphine cries, and Cosima passes Jeanne over immediately, letting Delphine run her hands over Jeanne’s small face, press kisses to Jeanne’s forehead. 

“She missed you,” Cosima says softly.

_“Maman_ missed you,” she says to Jeanne, and looks up, into Cosima’s eyes. “I missed you.”

“I missed you,” Cosima says, and they are falling forward together, their foreheads pressed against each other, their arms holding each other up, Jeanne safe between them. 

“I love you,” and it’s been so long since Delphine has said those words out loud, so much longer since she’s meant it. “Cosima, I did not say it back to you that day, but I love you, I do, I have and will always.”

“I know. I mean--” Cosima laughs and Delphine laughs too, and Jeanne burbles. “I got your letter. Krystal got it to me. And I am _so mad at you,”_ she adds, and Delphine only holds her tighter. “God, _Delphine,_ I was so mad at you.”

“How can I make it up to you?”

“Never do it again,” Cosima says without a second’s hesitation. “Never, ever leave me again.”

“Yes,” Delphine agrees. It is the easiest promise has ever made. “Yes, Cosima. I will never leave you.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sound of shrieking sends Delphine running to the doorway.

“No! _Noo!”_

“I’m gonna getcha! I’m gonna--”

It takes her a long moment to recognize Cosima’s voice, teasing and light, and the edge of laughter in Jeanne’s cries. It takes her longer to calm her heart.

Even now, five years after everything, Delphine does not quite believe that they are safe. Cosima doesn’t either, even if she is much better at pretending than Delphine is--she’s seen Cosima looks at Jeanne sometimes, the suspicion when they get new neighbors. She knows she’s not the only one who gets nightmares.

But slowly, slowly, that is what their time at court is beginning to feel like--a nightmare. Something unreal and distant, something they can ignore in the light of day. They will never be free of that time, and they both know someday it could come back to hurt them all, but for now they are free. They are healing. They are growing.

Jeanne is growing most of all. Delphine leans against the doorway, watching Cosima chase Jeanne in circles outside the house. Jeanne’s birthmark, pink when she was born, has darkened to purple, just barely visible past the neckline of her dress. Delphine makes all of her clothes, so Jeanne has no empty sleeve flapping on her left side, only a shorter sleeve that no hand emerges from.

She smiles like Cosima does.

_“Maman!”_ she shouts joyfully when she spots Delphine watching, sprinting over and grabbing at Delphine’s skirts. She’s beginning to get big, but Delphine lifts her anyway, settling her against her hip. 

“Are you having fun, _ma coeur?”_

“So much,” Jeanne giggles. Delphine grins back at her, helping her tuck a few stray blonde curls behind her ear. “We’re playin’ chase.”

“Mama Cosima is chasing you?” Delphine asks, Jeanne nodding enthusiastically. “And is Mama Cosima reminding you to be careful with your new dress that your _Maman_ worked so hard to sew?” 

“Mama Cosima is being so careful with Jeanne’s beautiful new dress,” Cosima interjects, beaming as she strides over to them both. “But Mama Cosima also _might_ have ripped her own dress in the process.” 

_“Cosima,”_ Delphine scolds, somewhat undermined by Jeanne’s laughter at the look on her face. “Again?”

“This little one is just too fast for me!” Cosima reaches out and taps Jeanne’s nose. “A little speed demon, this one.”

“I am _not,”_ Jeanne objects, folding her arms across her chest.

“No? What are you, then?”

“An _angel,”_ she says emphatically, making both Delphine and Cosima laugh. 

“She is right, Cosima,” Delphine points out, pressing a quick kiss to the side of Jeanne’s head. _“Mon ange.”_

“Yes, she is.” Cosima takes Jeanne from Delphine, kissing her on the forehead before setting her down. “Go inside, okay? We’ll have dinner soon.” 

_“D’accord!”_ Jeanne calls, dashing inside. Both Delphine and Cosima watch her go, before Cosima leans her head against Delphine’s shoulder.

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Delphine says. 

“Come on.” Cosima doesn’t even pretend to believe her. “I saw that look on your face when you all but ran out here. I’m fine. Jeanne’s fine. Are you?”

“Yes. I am,” she insists when Cosima raises an eyebrow. “Things are just...so wonderful. Too wonderful to last,” she admits at last, her hand reaching out to grasp Cosima’s.

Cosima nods, not speaking for a moment, just considering. “You’re right.”

The three of them had managed to stumble into the closest thing to perfection Delphine had ever known. Krystal’s family had smuggled them into France, officially listed as maids Carola and Dianne Beraud, sisters-in-law and widows who were taking care of the home and grounds. It was beautiful, and secluded enough to offer up at least some privacy and safety. Jeanne was growing up far from the ones who wanted her dead, still too young to ask difficult questions or imagine a world beyond the fields. 

Back at court, the King had remarried, still childless. A warrant remains out for Delphine’s arrest. Another warrant is out for the head of whoever abducted Jeanne.

“It’s not going to last,” Cosima continues. “It’s going to get hard again. It’s going to go wrong again. But we’ll get through,” she continues, squeezing Delphine’s hand. “We’ll be all right. We’ll be together.”

“Together,” Delphine agrees. “I like that.”

“Good,” Cosima says, pulling her into the house where their child is waiting. “Because I do too.”

The door closes, and Cosima pulls her in for a kiss.

_“Gross,_ Mama Cos!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ARE Y'ALL READY FOR OB TO COME BACK AND RUIN YOUR LIVES??? I know I am...but I can't watch it until tomorrow and it's killing me a lil bit. 
> 
> The epilogue should be up in a few minutes--y'all are the most wonderful folks and congrats on making it this far!


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real warnings for this one!

_Ma cherie, soleil de ma vie,_

_By the time you receive this letter, you will know the truth, and it will be too late. I want you to know I am sorry for all of it, that hurting you was never my intent. I know you are likely furious with me, and that is fine. I am just glad you are alive to be angry with me._

_I want you to blame yourself for none of this, mon amor. You could not have known what was to happen; I made sure of that. If I have any right to ask anything of you now, I ask you to stay far from Court and from Rachel, to be safe, and to be happy. I like to imagine you are happy now; I know at the moment, likely you are not. For my sake, smile while you read this._

_I cannot leave any possessions to you, and I would not want to. All the things I own here I do not own truly, they are things I have gathered or stolen like a magpie, and none of which I deserve. There is one thing in this world that is truly mine, and I bequeath it to you and Jeanne, and it is my love. You make take it, you may have all of it, for it was only ever for you._

_And my Jeanne, ma coeur, my heart, I will pray for her and I am selfish enough yet to ask you to do the same.I look at her and marvel, and already I ache for her too terribly for words. I am glad she is too young yet to know me and will be spared that pain. Love her for me, if you can, even from afar; I want there to always be someone on this Earth to love her truly, and I will soon be gone. Giving birth to her was the best thing I have ever done; she is the best thing I have ever had. I may not be able to tell her how dearly I love her, and so I am telling you instead, for I know you love her too._

_Ma plus cherie, you and Krystal are my only dear friends in this world. I will carry you two blessings in my heart alongside Jeanne, my miracle, until the end. When I close my eyes, I see you, holding Jeanne to your heart, and smiling at me. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, a miracle in the flesh, and all I want Heaven to be._

_I miss you. ~~I wish you were here~~ I am glad you are safe._

_I will love you always. If souls have homes, my soul’s was you._

_D_

 

\--A transcript of the famous “Sun of my Life” letter (with modern spellings substituted for ease of reading). The original letter was discovered in the early 1700’s, sealed in the back of a portrait of two unidentified noblewomen, one with her hand on the other’s (the painting itself is also notable, if only because it was rare to portray two women in a portrait; it has been theorized the two were sisters, although this is not agreed upon by art historians). 

The portrait was known to be owned and treasured by Queen Jeanne I, and was in fact one of the few possessions she brought with her when she reappeared after the death of her father in order to claim the throne. 

The value Jeanne put on the portrait and mentions of giving birth to Jeanne has led many to believe the author of the letter and the blonde in the portrait is her mother, Queen Delphine Cormier. Some theorize this letter was penned by Queen Delphine before her disappearance as a final goodbye to the King; others cite the feminine endings to the French terms of affection as evidence that the letter was to a woman. Though popular opinion holds that the letter was either to the King or one of her ladies-in-waiting, others claim this is evidence of the Queen having a female lover.

The original letter can be found on display alongside the portrait it was found inside at the British Museum.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

**IMAGE DESCRIPTION:** _Unidentified Noblewomen (potentially Queen Delphine Cormier and Friend), by Unknown Artist, mid-1500s._

Most famous for having had the “Sun of my Life” letter concealed in its back, this portrait is captivating all on its own. Both women are dressed relatively simply, the brunette on the left in dark green and the blonde on the right in deep blue. Though the dresses are not detailed, and the women are only visible from the waist up, the quality of fabric and depth of color indicate the women were of relatively high class. Both have their hair unadorned, only braided half-up to keep their hair out of their faces--highly unusual, especially for a formal portrait. However, very little of this portrait feels staged, but rather like a captured moment. 

The brunette has her back to the viewer, but has turned around so she might make eye contact with them. She is smiling, eyes dark brown and shining. Only one of her arms is visible--her elbow rests on a ledge that forms the bottom edge of the painting, and her hand rests on the other woman’s hand.

The blonde, whose hand is in the brunette’s, is facing the viewer, but not looking at them--her light brown eyes are instead directed toward the brunette’s face. Her blonde hair curls in neater waves than the brunette’s, and is long enough that the ends are not visible in the portrait’s waist-up framing. She is smiling, smaller than the other woman’s grin but clear nonetheless. Her free hand toys with a golden heart-shaped pendant.

The contents of the “Sun of my Life” letter and age of the portrait have led many to conclude that the blonde in the portrait is a depiction of Queen Delphine Cormier, the convicted and then vanished mother of Queen Jeanne I. However, this has received some pushback as she is not depicted in the formal style of a Queen, nor in a Queen’s finery. The blonde also appears somewhat older than Delphine Cormier was when she disappeared. These historians tend to argue this is a painting of a different noblewoman entirely, with a sister.

If this is Delphine Cormier, however, this could not be a sister, as the Queen had only a brother, who died when both were children. It is possible that this is the woman with whom the Queen allegedly had relations with, who remains unidentified to this day. Though debates about the validity of the charges laid against Delphine Cormier continue to rage to this day (most do agree that the charges of witchcraft would not hold up in a modern court), historians more and more are coming around to the idea that this former Queen may have loved a woman. This enchanting portrait, then, could be a tender depiction of two women in love, unable to show it beyond a mere joining of hands, but unable to stay apart.

This painting, along with the “Sun of my Life” letter, is currently on display at the British Museum.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------

**IMAGE DESCRIPTION:** _Queen Jeanne I, by Unknown Artist, late 1500s._

This portrait, on display at the National Portrait Gallery, depicts Queen Jeanne I in the second decade of her reign. Not only one of the longest-reigning monarchs, her story is one of the most exceptional as well. Jeanne had disappeared as a child on the same day her mother, Delphine Cormier, was meant to be executed but vanished instead. Long feared dead, theories had ranged from the King having Jeanne killed because he did not want a daughter with disabilities to Jeanne’s abduction by her own mother. Jeanne’s own account when she reemerged was that her mother had feared for her safety and entrusted her to the Goderitch family, who raised her as a ward in France under a different name. Initially with only two followers, identified as Carola and Dianne Beraud. Ironically, the very features that led to her mother’s conviction of witchcraft--being born without a left arm, and a port-wine stain on her neck--confirmed her as the King’s daughter and next-in-line for the throne.

Her ascension to the throne was not the only remarkable thing about her. A multitalented woman, it was her empathy and intelligence that helped her gain popular support, and wit and cunning that established her as a capable player of the political game. Additionally, she spoke many languages including Italian and French fluently, and played several musical instruments. Though there are no surviving paintings that can be confirmed to be by the Queen, she was said to have been an accomplished painter, and was quoted as saying that were she not on the throne, she would be an artist.

In her later years, Jeanne caused controversy by marrying a low-ranking noble, Lord Oscar Hendrix, and again broke with convention by never ceding control to him. The two were reportedly remarkably happy together, especially for royals. She would give birth to three children--Henry, who would take the throne, and twin girls named Cosima and Delphine.

In this famous portrait, Jeanne looks directly at the viewer, favoring a small smile instead of the solemn expression that most royals adopted for portraits. Her eyes are also bright, showing a bit of the playful personality that Jeanne was famous for--and which often covered a razor-sharp intellect and political cunning. Though her hair is pulled back, with a small tiara and veil perched on her head, a few blonde curls have escaped to frame her face.

Her gown is high-necked, with a thick white ruff covering her neck up to her chin. The gown is detailed with an intricate floral pattern, in what was originally scarlet and gold, though the pigments have faded now. In her right hand is a book, representing the Queen’s voracious appetite for knowledge, while her shorter left arm rests at her side. Her crown is visible on a table behind her. She wears a simple chain with a gold heart-shaped pendant hanging from the end, an allusion to her nickname-- _Queen Jeanne I, the Golden-Hearted._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration for the portrait of "Unidentified Noblewomen" was very loosely inspired by one of the presumed portraits of Gabrielle d'Estrees and sister (not the nipple-pinching one, I'm afraid) which I found here: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2015/06/22/arts/20150623-TOILETTE/s/2015-623TOILETTE-slide-EQ6E.html
> 
> Inspiration for the portrait of Queen Jeanne I was the Darnley portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, visible here http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02075/Queen-Elizabeth-I
> 
> I cannot thank you all for coming along with me on this story! Honestly, I was halfway to deleting my Ao3 altogether several times over these past few months, and came very close to not posting this at all. Your reads and kind words really do mean so incredibly much to me, and I'm so very glad I shared this story with you.  
> I hope these last parts were satisfying! Please do leave a comment if you're so inclined, I love to get to know you. And regardless, thank you. So very much.
> 
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! If you're reading this, thank you so much! It means the world to me.  
> I'm actually terrified to post this--I've been away from fic for about 8 months now (life got overwhelming, mental health took some hard hits), and so this is the first thing I've written in quite a while. But I just love Cosima and Delphine so much--I couldn't stay away forever. I"m not sure how good it is, but I knew I had to write something.
> 
> Comments are so very welcome, and again, thank you soso for reading!


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